Fire and Whiskey
by Team Damon
Summary: If she was his shot of whiskey, then he was the match that set it on fire and burned everything around it. AU oneshot based on characters from Life After Death but can be read on its own. Bucky/OC
1. Chapter 1

**A/N 1: So to start off with - if you are reading**** this and have not read Life After Death, then this oneshot may not make complete sense at first glance, but, you do not have to read that story to enjoy this one. Just to explain briefly should that be the case, in that story, my OC Summer wrote Bucky a story for his birthday that was inspired by her previous amusing drunken ramblings regarding a made-up scenario ****in which they met under much different circumstances, with Bucky as a troubled, mysterious, but playful farmhand, and she as a lonely and mistreated farmer's (estranged) wife. She takes that and turns it into a story, and since I couldn't resist, I wrote it out myself and am posting it here now as both a companion piece and a related sort of AU oneshot. So, please read and let me know what you think, good or bad! One more quick note at the bottom, and thanks for reading :D**

There had once been a time when she had hated the sight currently before her and utterly dreaded it: her husband, Marshall, packing a suitcase on top of their bed in preparation of yet another trip away from home. Sometimes it was a few weeks, sometimes it was a whole month. In the beginning, she hated these trips and just wanted him to stay. But the beginning was a long time past, and now, she greeted the sight before her with a resigned but distinct sense of relief.

She leaned against the doorway, arms crossed as he zipped up the suitcase. "So how long this time?"

"Not sure," he replied without looking back at her. "Two weeks at least."

That meant at least a month, she knew. Since she was never invited along to these trips, she could only take his word for what he actually did on them and what took them so long. She had her suspicions, but the days where she actually cared were long over.

"You'll have to watch over things while I'm gone."

She rolled her eyes, biting her tongue before something sarcastic flew out. "I know. I haven't forgotten my 'farmer's wife' duties."

He straightened up and then turned around, suitcase in hand as he added, "Oh, and I want you to keep an eye on the new guy."

"What new guy?"

"I just hired him last week," he explained. "Just got out of the Army after doing two tours or something, or maybe it was three. I don't remember. Anyway, he just gives me a weird vibe. You know how vets can be kind of... off their rockers when they get back."

She raised her eyebrows a little but didn't say anything to the arguably rather offensive comment, nor did she point out the fact that Marshall apparently wasn't thinking twice about leaving her alone - minus the other farmhands - on the farm with a stranger who gave him "weird vibes".

"And his name is Bucky," Marshall added, using air quotes with his fingers. "What kind of name is that?"

"An old one," she shrugged. "You're probably overthinking it."

He shrugged. "Maybe. But I'll point him out to you and then I've gotta go."

She nodded, moving out of the way so that he could pass through the doorway. Then she followed him through the hallway, down the stairs and out the front door, into the rather stifling afternoon heat and oppressive rays of the sun that waited outside.

It was so hot that her sundress felt immediately like it was stuck to her skin, and she wished that she hadn't left her long, dark brown hair down, but she tried to ignore the uncomfortable heat as Marshall left his suitcase by the front door and led her towards a row of animal pins across the property. The farm had been inherited - begrudgingly - by Marshall five years earlier, and while she had taken to farm life like a fish to water, he hated it and delegated as much of the work as he could while focusing most of his time and energy on the sales business he'd had before. It was for the best, she thought, because he wasn't especially gifted at farming or caring for animals or growing _anything_, but he disagreed and thought five years of doing the bare minimum amount of farm work made him an expert.

"There he is, by the new sheep pin," Marshall said quietly, pointing briefly towards a half-built pin and a man hammering next to it. The first thing that she noticed about him was that he was wearing long sleeves and apparently gloves too, and in this heat, that did make him possibly quite insane. "And he's already screwing up."

Stifling a sigh, she kept following him until they reached the pin, and then she hung behind deliberately and tried not to cringe as Marshall didn't bother with a hello or even a polite tone as he immediately started in on the poor guy about how he was building the pin wrong and how he had just gone over this with him the day before and should have remembered. She wanted to laugh at the same time, because the last time Marshall had built something himself, it had lasted all of five days before it fell apart.

She didn't feel like watching more evidence of her husband's lack of decency, so she turned and stared out over the property and pulled her hair up into a ball at the back of her head and held it there with her hand to give her neck a chance to cool off. The other workers were toiling away, most of them guys who couldn't speak English and weren't exactly legal citizens, which made them prime opportunities for Marshall to get cheap labor. She hated how little he paid them, and when he was gone or otherwise engaged, she would slip them a little more cash or make them decent meals to help make up for it.

In fact, she had a small stash of cash that she planned on distributing as soon as Marshall was gone. She tried to hide her instant smile at the thought, getting way too much satisfaction out of knowing how pissed he'd be if he knew.

"Summer."

Smile gone at the sound of his voice, she turned around and looked at Marshall and the irritated look on his face as he told the worker, who still had his back to her, "This is my wife, Summer, and she'll be in charge for me while I'm gone." As soon as he finished his sentence, his phone rang, and he turned around to fish it out of his pocket and answer it.

She let go of her hair and straightened up a little, ready to paint a smile on her face and assure the guy that she wasn't the idiot douche that her husband was. Then he finally turned around, and instead of smiling, she simply stood there and used all of her self-control to keep her jaw from dropping.

It had been a _long_ time since she'd seen a face that gorgeous anywhere except a TV screen. Blue eyes, dark hair that he reached a hand towards to push away from those blue eyes, and a strong, stubbled jawline that she might have stared at for longer than was acceptable. And his shirt, while ridiculously long-sleeved, was quite thin, and was clinging to his broad, perfect shape in a way that she did _not_ need.

But the very worst part of it all was the fact that while she was staring in shock, he actually did a double take upon looking at _her_.

She had to say something - she should have said something ages ago, or at least what felt like ages ago.

Completely thrown and brain momentarily useless, she blurted out, "... You're hot."

While Marshall spoke obliviously into his phone a safe distance away, the man - Bucky, she reminded herself - snapped his eyes back up to hers from who knew _where_ they had just been, and she almost gasped in horror when she realized what she had said.

She cleared her throat. "... Aren't you?" she asked, desperately trying to recover from the embarrassing blunder. "Because of the shirt. And the... gloves. Aren't you hot?"

He blinked a few times and shook his head slightly, looking down briefly before muttering, "Uh..."

Vaguely hoping that a sinkhole would open up for her to conveniently jump into, she was almost relieved then when Marshall got off his phone and turned around, effectively ending the moment. "All right, we good here?"

She nodded, Bucky muttered a quiet "Yes sir", and she fought the urge to look at him one more time before Marshall nodded and took her arm gently as he led her away. She forced herself to not turn around, despite the tickling feeling of being watched, and almost didn't hear Marshall when he started half-whispering to her.

"Like I said, just keep an eye on him. And if he ever does something weird or scares you, you know where the shotgun is. Don't hesitate to tell him to leave, do what you have to."

Pulling her arm away, she looked up at him and furrowed her brows. "He seems pretty normal to me."

"Well, I'm just saying."

She followed him until they reached his car, which is where she stopped and crossed her arms as he loaded his suitcase into his trunk. She continued to fight the urge to look back, and was subsequently a bit shocked when suddenly Marshall was hugging her goodbye.

She stiffened and didn't return the embrace, instead pushing him off the first chance that she got. He didn't seem to mind, but then again, he was used to this by now.

"I'll see you soon," he said, and then made her eyes widen as he leaned in for a kiss.

She ducked away long before the kiss could land even on her cheek, and after she stepped back to put some distance between them and make sure he couldn't try it again, she looked up to find an irritated expression on his face. She just stared back at him, a little bewildered as to why he would even try, considering how long it had been since she had been okay with really any degree of physical contact. The lack of a ring on her finger for over a year now was a symptom of that.

"Whatever," he muttered before turning and getting into his car without another word or look her way. She was fine with that, rolling her eyes and walking away as the engine rumbled to life.

She kept her eyes either forward or to the ground as she walked back to the front door, towards the air conditioning that awaited inside and away from her departing husband and even further away from the farmhand she wouldn't let herself sneak one more glance at.

What she didn't know was that the farmhand in question didn't have quite the same discipline as she did, and had indeed watched the entire exchange between herself and Marshall with a distinct sort of curiosity.

It was the start to an interesting month.

* * *

The first day wasn't nearly as awkward as she had feared it would be.

With Marshall gone, the whole farm felt more relaxed and pleasant within an instant. The workers were less stressed and Summer felt like a weight had lifted with his absence, but she thought she was nothing if not obedient - she did indeed "keep an eye" on the new farmhand, just as she had been told to do.

He was living on the edge of the property, in some small rooms that Marshall had had constructed for the essential workers, and his work mostly revolved around the livestock. She deduced this on her own, because she was intent on avoiding actual contact with him at all costs after making an idiot out of herself the day before.

But why _did_ he wear such odd clothes? Most of the other guys wore as little as possible during these disgustingly hot months, and yet there he was, basically covered from head to toe and visibly sweating buckets. Not that she was staring or anything.

Then again, she thought as she worked on a giant pot of stew for that night's dinner that was for every worker there, he _had_ been away at war, apparently, so maybe he wore stuff to cover up scars or something. Not that she was thinking about it too much or anything.

She didn't say a word to him or approach him all day until the stew was done. There was a big picnic table out back that she used to feed everybody when Marshall was gone, so as per the tradition, she took the pot out and set it down in the middle of the table, then almost laughed at how quickly the crowd of hungry dudes grew around her.

She couldn't actually speak to most to them, but they expressed their gratitude through gestures and smiles that she wholeheartedly returned. Some of them she wasn't sure were even old enough to be worked as hard as they were, which motivated her even more to help where she could. And they all seemed pretty fond of her in return.

Once everyone was sitting and eating as dusk slowly set in, she looked around and realized without the faintest bit of surprise that the newest guy wasn't there. He wouldn't be, though, because he didn't know the routine she had going with the others.

She would have to go and find him, and then tell him to go and eat. And she _really_ didn't want to.

But she did anyway, because it was the right thing to do, and also because rationally, she knew she couldn't hide from him forever. It was far from the first time she'd ever embarrassed herself, and it wouldn't be the last.

She found him by the pin that he was still working on from the day before, most of which was built by now. It didn't pass her notice that he hadn't heeded Marshall's instructions and had kept on building it the way that he'd started.

She liked him already.

Like the day before, his back was to her, and she could hear music blasting into his ears from earbuds even from her distance behind him. Now wondering not only how he hadn't died from heat stroke as well as gone deaf, she realized as he hammered away that she had a new dilemma. He couldn't hear her, so she would have to get his attention another way. She couldn't exactly walk in front of him and get it that way, because she'd have to climb inside the pin first.

After stalling behind him way too long, she rolled her eyes and walked up to him, deciding to hurry up and tap his shoulder before she lost her nerve. She went with his left one, and as soon as she had tapped against it, her eyebrows furrowed a bit and she paused in confusion, because it did not feel like she had just tapped human flesh.

But before she could even register the thought, he had whipped around so quickly that she jumped back in surprise and almost squeaked. There was nothing threatening about it or his equally surprised expression as he took a step back and pulled the earbuds out of his ears, but her heart was still pounding just from being startled.

"Sorry," she smiled, looking up at him and feeling as instantly stupid as she had the day before. "I, uh... you couldn't hear me, so..."

"No, I'm sorry," he quickly said. "Is something wrong?"

"No," she shook her head, "not at all. Actually, I came to tell you that I, uh - when Marshall's gone, sometimes I make dinner for everybody. I wait until he's gone because he says we can't afford it, but we can, so... anyway, I made a giant pot of stew, so, if you want, you can come have some too."

He looked genuinely surprised by her words, which she noticed after inevitably cringing inside at her semi-rambling. At least she hadn't embarrassed herself yet.

"... Okay," he nodded. "Yeah, thanks."

She nodded, watching him brush his hair back from his eyes with a gloved hand before she realized she was on the verge of staring again. "Okay, so, um, if you want you can follow me, and I'll... show you where it is."

He nodded, and she smiled before pausing and then realizing he was waiting for her to start walking. She then turned around and got going, hearing his surprisingly light footsteps behind her and wondering why she was so incurably weird.

It was almost enough to distract her from the fact that tapping his shoulder had felt like tapping on metal, which she found very strange. But then she had a thought - having survived war and all, maybe he hadn't come back in one piece, and that was why he seemed to insist on dressing so fully even in the sweltering heat.

It made perfect sense, she decided as they walked towards the back of the house, but it was a shame - he'd end up getting sick one of these days or just end up needlessly miserably hot every single day.

"Do you... uh... do you need some clothes, maybe?" she asked when he had started to walk at her side rather than behind her. He briefly looked at her before turning his eyes back to the ground in front of him. "Like... lighter clothes? Because I could find you some. It's pretty hot and..."

"It's fine," he shrugged.

"Well, I'm just saying - if I was wearing long sleeves and gloves out here during the day, I would probably melt and die."

The corner of his lips quirked up a little, but he shook his head a bit and replied, "It's not so bad."

The picnic table now in sight, she glanced up at him and said, "Okay, well, don't take this the wrong way and I hope I'm not overstepping here, but Marshall told me you just got out of the Army, and... if it's got something to do with that or something that happened to you over there, then I get it but you don't have to make yourself miserable. Whatever it is, nobody here is gonna care or look or be rude."

Positive that she _had_ overstepped, she looked at him cautiously as they stopped a bit closer to the table. To her relief, he didn't look offended or uncomfortable in the least. He just looked surprised, and pleasantly so. She had noticed that he usually had a sort of far-away, hardened look in his eye that wasn't uncommon for men like him, but for just a few seconds, his eyes softened just a little bit, and that was all the response she needed.

"Anyway," she smiled, "Go on and eat however much you like."

He returned her smile, then inclined his head. "Thank you, ma'am."

Coming from anyone else, the term "ma'am" would have made her exclaim in protest that she was only 26 and that term was for grannies, but coming from him, somehow, it was okay.

Once he was sitting down at the table and eating, she felt like she could then go on back inside and have dinner herself, now that everybody else was taken care of for once. She waved goodbye to the others, who all again began thanking her in their own language, and she smiled and nodded her acknowledgment before one set of blue eyes amongst the others caught hers as she was walking away.

She looked away quickly, a little too quickly, but she could tell that he did not, feeling his gaze all the way to the front door.

* * *

The second day, he finally took off his gloves. She was washing dishes in her kitchen sink and periodically glancing through the window above it when she saw him walking across the front of the property towards a shed. He was still in a long sleeved shirt, but the gloves were gone, evidenced by a flash of silvery metal where his left hand should have been. A closer look told her that it _was_ his hand, however, and suddenly it made a lot more sense why his shoulder had felt like a toaster rather than a body part.

But that would mean the whole thing was metal, she realized, his whole arm, and was that even possible? She shook her head at herself, because_ of course_ it was possible. It was just highly unusual, and she was willing to bet there was quite the story behind it.

As she stared, she glanced up momentarily to find him looking in her direction. She quickly looked away, hoping he couldn't see her through the window, and then dropped the plate in her hands into the sink and cringed at the loud clanging sound that it made.

She rolled her eyes at herself and then dropped the blinds over the window, knowing she wouldn't get that flash of metal out of her head for longer than she cared to admit.

* * *

The first week was, all in all, rather uneventful. This time of the year was always busy, and there was no shortage of things to do, especially when Summer was the only one technically "running" the farm. Since she liked the life there - minus Marshall, who hadn't bothered to call her more than twice since he'd left - it was no burden, and she could get used to running it by herself. She could also get used to the generally more pleasant mood everybody was in now, though she knew it was all fleeting.

On the eighth day, she took a few hours' break in the late afternoon to spend time in one of her favorite places on the land, which was her garden. She had never so much as watered a plant before they moved here, but she had decided to give it a go and try her hand at it, then ended up having to fight with Marshall over the part of the land that she wanted to plant the garden in. He had wanted to use it for something else, and it had taken forever for him to finally give in and let her have it. Now, five years later, it was actually a pretty decent garden, divided into separate sections for herbs and flowers, and she was quite proud of it.

It was rather relaxing, the act of pruning, watering, harvesting, all of the things that came with tending to a garden, and until that day, it had also been a haven of solitude. Marshall had never even looked at the garden, let alone bothered her while she was in it, so it came as a shock when, as she was trimming one of her rose bushes, a shadow cast over her hands and she heard a familiar voice ask, "Need a hand?"

She looked up and was immediately at an utter loss. Today, for the first time, he was not wearing long sleeves, but rather a slightly more reasonable white r-shirt. Her brain screamed at her not to stare at his left arm, which was indeed all metal and proportionate to his other, so she quickly met his eyes and all but choked, "... Hi." When he didn't say anything, she added, "Um... what did you say?"

"Do you need a hand," he repeated, visibly trying not to smile.

"Oh... um... sure," she said, looking around the garden in slight panic. She had gotten used to communicating with him once or twice a day, and very briefly at that, which was easy. Sitting down right across from him in a place she wasn't used to having _anybody_ in - and presumably having a conversation of some kind in the process - that was rather different.

She tried to calm down as he knelt down across from her, far enough away to be appropriate but close enough for conversation. She handed him an extra pair of pruning shears, and he took it with his right hand as he gestured to the garden and asked, "You do all this on your own?"

"Yep," she nodded. "After a lot of trial and error. Mostly error."

He grinned faintly and nodded, while she did her best to stare at her roses and not at him. "You don't seem like the gardening type. Or the farm type. No offense."

"Oh, not at all. I'm not," she replied with a chuckle. "I grew up in a suburb. I never stepped foot on a farm until Marshall inherited this place from his parents."

"Seems like you adjusted pretty well."

This was already more than he'd ever spoken to her before, and rather than feeling more at ease the more they spoke, she felt more and more nervous instead. "Yeah. I actually really like it. The smell doesn't even bother me anymore."

He chuckled quietly, and she snuck a glance at him. His hair was as messy as ever, jaw with its usual light layer of stubble, and his eyes were focused on the plant in front of him as he snipped away the dead parts.

"What about you?" she asked. "Are you used to farm life?"

"I used to be," he shrugged. "It's like riding a bike, I guess."

She nodded, focusing on her own section of the bush as she shook her head and said, "You know that you could make a lot more money on another farm. I don't know how much he's paying you but I'm sure it's insultingly low."

He shrugged again. "But not all farms offer lodging."

If she knew him a little better, she would feel more comfortable asking about the story behind that last comment, but for now, she kept it to herself. She could only surmise that he'd had a difficult life and was trying to get away from it all for awhile.

"You're the one that doesn't make sense."

She blinked out of her thoughts and looked at him, confused. "Huh?"

"Why do you stay?" he asked.

She wasn't sure that she'd ever been more speechless before in her life. Here was a guy who had probably spoken to her husband all of two or three times, and yet he acted as if he had the slightest clue about him or the dynamic of her relationship with him.

Never mind that it was a question she had asked herself more times than she could count.

When she did nothing but stare ahead and gape as she failed to form an answer, Bucky said, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked that."

"Probably not," she agreed. "But," she then conceded, "I guess it's pretty obvious."

"You don't wear a ring. And I hear the others talk," he explained. "I speak a little Spanish. They love you to death but they hate him. They all talk about how they want you to kick him out and take the farm over for good."

She smiled a little, still keeping her eyes on the roses. "If only it was that simple." Then she glanced at him and said, "Now that I know you speak Spanish I might ask you to translate for me every once in awhile so I can finally really talk to everybody."

"I'm not fluent," he replied. "But I pick up things here and there. Like your apple pie. They talk about it almost as much as they talk about how much they hate the boss."

She smiled a little wider at that. "Well. I do make a pretty dang good pie."

She looked his way just in time to watch him grin faintly, so faintly she could wonder if she was imagining it, just before he asked, "Will I get to try it?"

Now she _knew_ that she was imagining things, and taking things wildly the wrong way, because she could have sworn then that he was using the topic of food to flirt with her. But no, that couldn't be right, because the little spark in his eye and that tiny grin was surely all in her head, and besides, they were only talking about apple pie.

"Maybe," she managed to reply. "You'd have to pick some of my apples first."

And then, he really did grin, and there was no convincing herself that she was imagining it. She just didn't understand why talking about picking apples made him grin like _that_. She felt vaguely like she had stumbled unknowingly into an inside joke without being let in on the secret.

"I can do that," he finally replied, turning his eyes back to the rose bush as he resumed helping her prune. She stared at him for a moment, wondering what she had missed, because she had obviously missed something.

Not too long later, the sun was starting to set, and that meant that it was time for her to do her rounds in checking the animals. Two goats were due to have babies any day, and she was keeping an especially close eye on them, which gave her the perfect excuse to get away. She only wanted to get away as badly as she did because she truly did _not_ want to, but she _really_ needed to.

"Well, I think this is enough pruning for one day," she said, setting her shears down and shaking her hands free of any stray dirt or anything else. She was about to get up when she noticed that he had stood up rather quickly and was now holding out his right hand to her. She froze for a moment, staring at his hand long enough to make herself feel like an idiot before she took it for the offer of help that it was, regardless of how unnecessary. But necessity wasn't the point, clearly.

She placed her hand in his and as he helped pull her to her feet, she tried to ignore the instant jolt of _something_ that shot through her fingertips and ended up settling in her stomach, which flipped in a way that it had not done in a very, very long time. She did her best to hide it though, smiling politely and then pulling her hand away once she was standing. He then drew both of his hands behind his back, not going anywhere, and she stared for one second too long before saying, "Okay, well... see you later."

He nodded, small but distinct smile on his lips, and when she finally turned around and started walking away, she briefly closed her eyes and cursed how apparently easy it was to make her feel so... out of her element these days.

Because that was surely all it was. Anything else would be ridiculous.

This time, she glanced back at him as she continued walking towards the animals. He was walking away in the opposite direction, hands in his pockets and smile lingering on his face as his eyes watched the ground.

And that made her more nervous than anything else.

* * *

The basket of apples that showed up on her doorstep the next day wasn't a surprise. What was a surprise was how much, with each passing day, she seemed to accidentally and completely unintentionally draw Bucky further out of his shell, and he in turn reminded her of how pleasant she could be when she was around people that she could actually enjoy being around.

It was more sad than anything, she thought, because until now, she hadn't really noticed how forcing herself to live with Marshall had begun to change her for the worse. She had begun to become bitter, easily angered and short tempered, and in truth, she had never been any of those things. Now, with him gone and a new person around who seemed to enjoy her company, she could feel her real personality starting to peek out again, with all of its awkwardness and lack of social skills. As frustrated as she could be with what flew out of her mouth, it didn't matter, because she noticed something else even more striking - she was starting to _laugh_ again.

He liked to seek her out once or twice a day, usually around lunchtime, and at the start of the third week, it had started to become a part of her daily routine. She would eat out on the porch, under the shade, and he'd sit across from her and talk about all sorts of things from the animals and other stuff on the farm to anything else that came up in the conversation. He was never anything but respectful, and he stayed away from the invasive questions now, but there were times when he'd say something seemingly harmless with _that_ look in his eye and _that_ grin on his face, and she would again find herself in a state of bewildered confusion.

Odd moments aside, she was enjoying waking up genuinely cheerful for the first time in a long time. Her moods were so improved that she even found herself drawn to something that she hadn't done in months - horseback riding, on one of the horses that Marshall had once bought for her during what she termed as one of his "suck-up phases".

It was one of the cooler days that they'd had in recent weeks, which made the day even nicer as she set out on her ride. She followed a trail that wound off of her land and through a few nearby hills, circling back and giving her a wonderful view of the entire farm. She couldn't help but smile with pride, because she really did love the place and had invested so much of herself and her time and energy into it since coming here. Life here could be so good, so much better, with just a few strategic changes - one, really.

As she made her way back to the stables, she remained focused on her thoughts and barely even noticed the loud, grinding blast of a nearby tractor engine dying a rather sudden and noisy death. By the time she had registered what it was, her horse had already reared back on its hind legs, and her tight gripping of the reins and frantic calls for him to calm down were both useless - the horse threw her off almost immediately, and she hit the ground with a pained and shocked cry that she didn't even hear.

Someone else heard her, however, and the sound of heavy footsteps rushing her way vaguely reached her ears as she began to comprehend what happened. She tried to lift off from her sprawled position on the ground with her right arm, only to be met by a sharp pain that made her gasp in shock as two arms suddenly picked her up and brought her against something hard, which turned out to be Bucky's chest.

"Are you okay? Summer, answer me," Bucky demanded softly but urgently, looking her over as she squinted up at him.

"Ow... I'm okay, I think, but - my arm," she said, moving her right arm for emphasis and then hissing at the immediate burst of pain.

Behind them, one of the other farmhands were leading her horse back into the stables after having coaxed it back to down on all four legs, but she didn't notice this, because Bucky nodded at her before standing up, carrying her over to a nearby tree. He asked her first if she was okay to sit up, and after she nodded that she was, he set her down against the tree and then knelt in front of her.

She was certainly in pain, but definitely not to the point of delirium, and even in this situation, she couldn't help but be taken aback and briefly stunned by his hands on her. They were clinical touches and nothing that wasn't necessary, but just the contrast of warm flesh and cold metal checking her for broken bones left her even more dazed than she already was. She looked up in his eyes, which were narrowed and focused entirely on the task at hand, and since it was much nicer to focus on how dark and long his eyelashes were rather than how much her arm and shoulder hurt, she stared them until he looked up at her and started talking.

"You look okay, but your shoulder's dislocated," he said, and she let out a sigh. Well, at least that explained the pain that she was in. "I'm gonna fix it, but it's probably gonna hurt."

She nodded, having seen it done in movies before, though she really hoped that the real thing ended up being different. "Just... do it."

"You sure?"

She nodded, taking a deep breath. "Yep."

"Okay."

She closed her eyes and felt one very cold and hard hand on her elbow, while a warm one wrapped gently around her forearm.

"Summer. Look at me."

She opened her eyes and met his gaze, and just after her breath left her lungs, he jerked forward a little bit, and with one more burst of pain, her bones popped back into place.

The relief was immediate, and she let out a deep breath as she closed her eyes again, immensely grateful that it was over. "Thank you."

She opened her eyes and he nodded, his right hand still lingering on her forearm. "You're lucky a dislocated shoulder was all you got."

She nodded in agreement, his hand leaving her arm as she moved it out and around, testing her range of movement. "I know. I've never been thrown off a horse before. I can't believe it actually happened."

"Well... don't do it again," he said with a slight smile, and she chuckled with a small shake of her head.

"I'll try not," she replied, letting her fixed arm hang comfortably at her side as he continued to kneel in front of her, like the thought hadn't even crossed his mind to get up or move anywhere. Her eyes moved to his metal hand, which she hadn't felt or touched once until a few moments ago, and on what she would later call a horse-thrown whim, she asked, "Can you... feel with that arm?"

He looked surprised at the question, and maybe a little uncomfortable, but not offended, to her relief. "Yeah."

"Really?" she asked, sitting up a little straighter. "How?" When his silence told her that he likely had no idea how science made such a thing possible, she placed her hand over the back of his and asked, "So you can feel that?"

He looked down at their hands, his pause giving away his surprise at her unexpected touch. "I... yeah, I mean... it doesn't feel like my other hand does, but..."

She moved her hand away a few inches, and he shifted his arm so that his hand was palm-up as he looked down at it. Then, surprising herself as much as him, she gently ran two of her fingers down his palm and asked, "So what's that feel like?"

He eyes shot up to hers one more time, and this time, she knew that she had done something that she shouldn't have. But her fingertips were still on the edge of his palm, and though all of her instincts yelled at her to run and hide just to escape his gaze, she couldn't look away.

He stared at her while he formulated an answer, and she could see the words on the tip of his tongue, but before she could hear them, there was another loud bang from where the first one had come from, and Summer nearly jumped out of her skin.

Bucky blinked and looked down, and her hand had shot away at the loud sound, leaving the moment quite decisively ruined. She was glad for it though, at least on a level that surpassed the ones currently very mad with how it had ended. It was for the best. She didn't need that question answered.

"I'd better go check out that tractor before it blows up," she said, and Bucky nodded, quickly getting to his feet so he could help her get to hers.

"Careful with your arm," he reminded her.

She nodded, straightening out her clothes and replying, "Thank you again. Seriously. I owe you now."

He just shook his head. "Nah."

"Well... I can at least make you another pie or something," she shrugged.

"You don't have to -"

"And you didn't have to help me," she pointed out with a smile, starting to walk towards the tractor. "That's the idea."

He smiled back, but something in it was a little bit forced. She tried not to think about it, or about his hands and how they had felt on her, or his eyes and the story they told through his silence.

The more time that passed and the more things like this that happened, the harder certain things were to ignore and pretend were nonexistent. Things like how it was hard to breathe when he looked at her sometimes, or how her insides did gymnastics when he touched her, and how a nagging sense of loss prickled at the back of her mind when she walked away from him like this.

Even harder to ignore was the way that he watched her every time she left. Though she never saw it, she could always feel it, and it felt like something she wasn't sure that she could handle.

It could almost make her grateful to have a broken tractor, just for the excuse to run away and think about something else, which her inner cowardice was very thankful for.

* * *

To her relief, Bucky wasn't the sort to let a potent moment here and there color his every interaction with her. The next day, everything seemed back to normal, with him sitting on her porch and scarfing down a sandwich while describing to her how insanely cute one of the new baby goats were, despite the fact that it had tried to chew his ear off of his head.

Everything was easy with him, she thought, and it was a far cry from the sort of thing that she was used to from any man, friend or otherwise. She'd spent so long with Marshall and dealing with his moods and long, never-ending grudges and delicate state of mind that she had forgotten what it was like to not have to tiptoe or be afraid to ask a question, or ask for help with something. Now that she had remembered, going back to that life when he returned felt... utterly and inconceivably miserable.

And that was the catch, she supposed.

"Heard from him lately?" Bucky asked during one of their times on the porch, when Marshall's name had come up in conversation.

She shook her head. "Not since last weekend."

"Still don't know when he's coming back?"

She shook her head again. "Too soon."

She meant it as a joke, but Bucky didn't smile. She didn't either.

"I haven't asked, but..."

She sighed, sitting up straighter in her chair and muttering, "I know, I know. And thank you, by the way. But everybody else knows, so you may as well know too."

She then launched into the whole story of exactly how she had ended up where she currently was. She had been very young and naive and he had seemed like everything she had ever dreamed of, so they got married almost shockingly quickly on a high based on what turned out to be lies. Marshall was not what he seemed, suffered from various addictions, was a compulsive liar, and had even hit her once with a book during an argument. She had tried to leave more times than she could count, even filed for divorce once, but one way or another, she could never seem to get away for good. It was usually because of money or a lack of support, and more than once, because of his threats. She left out the worst part of it all, which was the loss of an unborn baby, the only time she had ever been pregnant, and his cold and careless treatment of her during the ordeal. She didn't want Bucky to look at her the way everybody else did when they heard that part.

"... So, now I'm kind of just... waiting," she said at the end of the story. "I love this place and I know he won't last much longer here. He's gonna get sick of it and get sick of me eventually and he'll leave. I know he will. And then it'll be mine and we can just be divorced and done with it all." She paused and took a drink of the iced tea clutched in her hand, then added, "I hope."

He took a minute to soak that story in, and after a momentary silence, he asked, "So you're not actually together?"

She shrugged. "On paper, yeah, but in reality, no not really. The thing is, we were separated legally for awhile, and then because of the farm and the business we changed that because it was just easier. And after that happened he said he wanted to 'try again'," she said with air quotes. "That's why I have my horses. And sometimes he'll buy me random stuff or try to take me out somewhere. That's him 'trying'. He's on his own with that one and he knows it."

"... He sounds like an idiot," Bucky said after a moment.

She chuckled. "That he is." Then she cringed and leaned her head back against her seat and muttered, "I shouldn't be talking to you about this. He's your boss. I am being horribly unprofessional."

"I won't tell," he replied playfully, and she just shook her head. In reality, she was pretty sure she had crossed the line of professionalism from her first idiotic two words to him the day they'd met, so really, she wasn't sure it even mattered anymore.

"It's gonna suck when he comes back. And you won't be able to do this with me anymore."

"Do what?"

"This," she gestured to the porch.

"Talk to you?" he asked with slight concern.

"Well, definitely not like this, during your lunch break on my porch with me," she explained. "He might know that I don't give a crap about him anymore, but he'll fire you in a heartbeat if he thinks..."

"Thinks what?"

She paused and muttered, "You know."

"That... what?" he pressed, a glimmer in his eyes giving away his sudden amusement at the turn the conversation had taken, even leaning forward in his seat some.

"You _know_," she smiled nervously, suddenly trying to think of a way to change the subject but failing.

"You mean that he'll think that we're... lovers?"

She wanted to throw her glass at his head, but she controlled her urges and instead just melted a little inside from the way that he had said _lovers_, like it was a teasing caress rolling off his tongue. And to make matters so much worse, the moment he had said it, her face had flared up in a blush that she could _feel_, and if she could feel it, he could certainly see it. And judging by the amused grin on his face, he not only saw it, but he was thoroughly enjoying it.

"Right," she finally replied. "So... when he's back, keep your distance."

"And if I don't want to keep my distance?" he asked, surprising her for a moment. It took her a few seconds to figure out how to answer that.

"Well, then he could fire you," she said, though she felt like she was stating the obvious. "And he would, trust me."

He shrugged, leaning back in his seat a bit. "I'll take my chances." Then after a pause, he added, "Unless he would hurt you again."

"... He only hit me the one time," she replied quietly. "And it was a long time ago."

"I don't think that really matters."

Of course it didn't matter, but that was beside the point. Now she felt a familiar sense of stupidity and maybe even shame setting in, but it wasn't Bucky's fault. This is was just why she didn't share her story with anyone if she could help it - she came out looking like the idiot who stuck with the scumbag instead of being strong and leaving and making it on her own. And him stating simple truths like the lack of a difference between being hit once or fifty times had made it all the worse.

She sat up in her chair and then began to get up, unaware of the expression etched on her face until she heard Bucky say, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to..."

"No, it's fine," she shrugged a little bitterly, avoiding eye contact. "It's not you. I just remembered why I hate telling people that story."

She couldn't believe it, but she felt actual tears start prickling at her eyes as she stood up and started heading for the door. She couldn't remember the last time she had actually cried, and now she wanted to get away from him as fast as she could in case the tears actually made their way out. But he was close behind, as always.

"Summer, please, I really am sorry -"

She opened the front door and then turned around, smiling without humor. "Don't be. You can't possibly be more sorry than I am."

Then she threw herself inside the house and shut the door in his face, and to her utter dismay, she really did start crying.

It took her awhile to finally grasp what she was feeling and why. It was more than just the usual self-ridicule or even self-hate for having gotten herself into this situation in the first place. Now there was an extra component, added on like an unwanted bow on the top of the world's worst and most unwelcome gift.

It was easier to ignore it all when each day was the same as the next, when she was used to Marshall and was resigned to her reality. But now, that resignation was slipping, and the more that she talked to Bucky, the more that she laughed and began to feel like her old self, the more everything began to hurt all over again.

But it was still better than feeling nothing at all. How could she go back to that?

* * *

Though she still did not have a set date for Marshall's return, the general feelings on the farm were beginning to shift as the month's end drew near. Summer could tell that everyone was trying to enjoy the relaxed atmosphere while they still could, and when she heard music playing and loud, cheerful voices outside of her bedroom window one night, she smiled faintly and kept reading the book in her lap, surprised that they'd waited this long to throw a party.

When she heard what sounded like a rock hit her window, she thought she must have imagined it. But then there was another, and then another, and with a confused chuckle, she set her book aside and went to the window, moving the curtains aside and then pushing it up.

Bucky was standing in the middle of a large handful of the other farmhands, a grin on his face and a beer bottle in one hand, a handful of rocks in the other.

"Did you seriously just throw rocks at my window?" she asked with an incredulous smile.

"Are you gonna stay holed up in your room all night?" he retorted, letting the rest of the rocks fall to the ground.

"I'm not in much of a party mood," she called back.

"Then how about a drinking mood?" he asked, and she rolled her eyes with a smile. "Come on. Don't make me come up there."

She unconsciously bit her lip, not at all opposed to the idea of him letting himself into her home and physically dragging her outside.

Then she mentally slapped herself in the face. She _was_ opposed to that. Very opposed. So opposed that she could start a political party devoted to her opposition.

"Am I gonna have to come up there?"

She sighed, shaking her head at his shameless grin, then feeling her breath hitch a little when he raised the bottle in his hand and took a drink, watching her all the while.

"Fine," she finally conceded. "Give me a minute."

She then smiled and closed the window, and the very moment she walked away, Bucky was immediately pushed good-naturedly on the shoulder by a few of the other workers, all of whom were quite aware of what Summer was still intent on denying. He just pushed them back and grinned as he took another drink, while Summer dug through her closet to find a dress light enough to throw on and not suffocate in outside.

Once she was outside, she was greeted with a chorus of Spanish terms of endearment, none of which she could understand, by the already slightly drunk workers who were apparently thrilled to have her among them. She just smiled and accepted the beer bottle that was shoved into her own hand, though she didn't particularly enjoy the drink and knew full well that she had no business drinking around Bucky, because _reasons_.

She ended up taking a seat on the lowest step on her porch, content to just sit there and enjoy the warm night and south-of-the-border music being played on a giant stereo that looked like it was from the late 1980s. Bucky, for all of his coaxing to get her to come down, kept his distance at first, but she didn't mind. It gave her a chance to watch him speak to the others in his sort-of-okay Spanish and laugh at himself when he would say something ridiculously incorrect and make the others roar with laughter. Then they would try to teach him new words, acting out their meanings with often hilarious gestures, and she found it all ridiculously entertaining.

At least until one of the guys offered him a cigarette, which he accepted. It was all fun and games until she had watch him light it up and inhale, then lazily exhale, making something she had always considered to be rather gross and not attractive in the least suddenly... very, _very_ attractive.

Then he caught her staring, and she looked away so fast she almost gave herself a case of whiplash. She fought the embarrassed flush creeping up on her neck, trying to ignore it and force the blood to rush back out of her face back to the rest of her where it belonged.

She didn't dare chance another glance at him, at least not until he decided that he had kept his distance long enough and made his way over, sitting down next to her on the porch step.

"You haven't touched your drink," he noted, still nursing his own, cigarette long gone by now.

"Yeah... not big on beer," she shrugged, looking up at him and reminding herself that he was her friend, and talking to him was not as big of a deal as her brain was currently making it out to be.

"I figured," he replied. "If I had to guess, I'd say you're more of a... red wine kind of girl."

She looked at him curiously and asked, "Really? Why?"

"It's richer than white wine," he replied. "More of an acquired taste. More complex. Seems more suited to you. Am I right?" Then he narrowed his eyes and asked, "Or am I completely off and you don't like wine at all? Maybe whiskey's more your thing."

"Whiskey?" she repeated, enjoying this current conversation thoroughly and almost forgetting her anxiety of a few moments earlier.

He nodded. "Yeah. I'm sticking with that. Rum is too... common. Tequila's too cheap. Vodka too... Russian, too obvious," he chuckled. "No... you're a shot of whiskey."

"Wait," she laughed, "I thought you were guessing what I liked. Now you're saying what kind of alcohol _describes_ me?"

He nodded, grinning and leaning in closer without even realizing it, or at least she didn't think he realized it. "First I thought the red wine, because of the complexity and all, but... the acquired taste didn't fit," he explained, and she listened intently, unknowingly hanging on his every word. Then he made shamelessly direct eye contact that was almost just _too much_ as he added more quietly, "It's more of an instant thing. That immediate burn in your throat that almost hurts but makes you want more, even though you _know_ you shouldn't want it." His lips quirked in a smile, and he glanced down at her mouth that she was trying very hard to keep from falling open to the ground because of his words before looking back to her eyes. "That's you."

How she kept breathing, she would never really know. Of all of the questionable things that he had ever said to her, little things that could be interpreted as innocent or not so innocent, he had never said anything so clear and plain in its meaning before. She couldn't explain it away in her head, pretend that he had meant something else, or just ignore it.

He thought she was potent, strong, something that _burned_ him. Something that he wanted. Apparently something he _craved_.

And if there had been the slightest ambiguity in his words, the way that he looked at her after he spoke them shattered it.

Unable to think, let alone speak, she looked away and was about three seconds from bolting inside the house so that she could process the last few moments, but then there was one of the workers, Arturo, in front of them, swiping Bucky on the shoulder and gesturing to the stereo. He was saying something over and over with a big smile on his face, and Summer was oblivious to any of it until Bucky's shoulder bumped hers and made her look up at him.

"They're all saying we should dance," he explained.

She was fairly sure that this night could not possibly get any worse. "Uh..."

"What do you say?" he asked, obviously rather taken with the idea himself.

"I... don't dance," she choked out. "Seriously, I don't. Not a good idea." _A horrible idea. _

"Well," he said, standing up, "luckily, I do, so I can show you how." Then he held out his hand. "Come on. Just once."

She gaped at him with wide eyes, as if he'd just asked her to help him rob a bank rather than dance in front of her house. "But..."

"Do you really want to disappoint Arturo?"

She laughed despite herself, but she still wouldn't budge.

Finally, he just grabbed her hand himself and pulled her up to her feet, making her squeak in surprise as he dragged her away from the porch. She suddenly wished that she could teleport, so that she could vanish away to some distant mountaintop somewhere so that she could scream at the top of her lungs because this _could not be happening_.

But it was, and it was happening rather quickly. Someone turned the music up and then Bucky's left arm was suddenly around her waist, pulling her closer to him, and she knew that her face was already a blushing mess.

"Just follow my lead," he said, like it was the easiest thing in the world, all while keeping that stupid grin on his face that she was starting to hate. Before she could say a word, he brought her a bit closer and then spun her out, and she squealed a little bit, nearly tripping on her feet, but he pulled her back against his chest before she could fall. She looked up at him breathlessly, unprepared for being this close and this _surrounded_ by him, and he smiled a little more gently at her before drawing back a few inches and looking down at her feet as he told her how to move them, what to do, and though she could only half-comprehend what he was saying, she did her very best.

He danced her around her front yard to a song that, to her addled brain, reminded her vaguely of the theme song to _Puss in Boots_, though that was the very last thing on her mind. He twirled her around, practiced a few steps with her, and once made her heart fall into her stomach by unexpectedly dipping her low towards the ground, his metal arm holding her to him while his flesh hand gripped hers. She could hear little clicking and whirring sounds despite the music, growing louder the more that the arm moved and quieter when it was still.

She had almost begun to catch her breath towards the end of the song, which was when he spun her one more time, but instead of pulling her back the way that he did before, he drew her in so that her back was to his chest and his hand, still joined with hers, was over her stomach. The fact that she couldn't see him now made her anxiety spike a bit, but it was nothing compared to feeling the distinct sensation of lips brushing against her hair.

It could have been accidental. It probably wasn't. Either way, it was the thing that made her finally snap and run.

She let go of his hand and jerked away from him so fast that she felt a little dizzy, though that could have been attributed to other things. She turned and looked at him, finding that playful expression from a few moments ago gone and replaced with something a lot heavier and a lot harder to deal with.

"Sorry, I'll... uh... I'll be right back," she said before her feet took off seemingly all on their own, propelling her past him and towards the safety of her house. She kept her eyes fixed forward to avoid his, but she didn't miss the look that he had on his face. She couldn't tell if it was disappointment, frustration, or something else, but whatever it was, it didn't stop her from simply needing to just _get away_.

Once she got inside and had the door shut behind her, she lingered against the door and closed her eyes for a moment, trying to calm down her breathing and convince herself that she was overreacting. The problem was, however, that she wasn't, and she very well knew it.

She ended up retreating to her sink and grabbing a glass out of a cabinet, filling it with cold water and drinking it in the hopes that it would help clear her head, but it didn't. Maybe she needed a shot of whiskey instead.

Except that thought just made her groan a little and slump towards the sink. She could never think of whiskey the same ever again.

She refilled the glass and then decided to go and hide in her room just as the sound of the door opening quietly hit her ears. Right away, she nearly stopped breathing, knowing only one person on the farm had the nerve to even consider just walking inside. She didn't move or turn around, not even when she heard footsteps slowly getting closer. She missed her chance to run, and she suspected it was due to how badly she was sick of running.

The footsteps stopped before she had thought they would. As soon as they did, she finally heard him speak.

"Summer..."

Just the sound of her name being spoken by him right now made her insides leap. Taking a breath, she set down her glass on the counter and then turned around, trying to be brave as she met Bucky's gaze.

There was a safe distance between them, but nothing felt safe at that moment.

"I'm sorry if I..." he trailed off, and she wondered if he even knew what to apologize for.

When he seemed at a loss, she muttered quietly, "You should... go."

He nodded. "I know."

Then he took a step forward, and she gave up on trying to breathe.

"You're not going," she observed, stating the obvious as he kept coming closer, so slowly that it was almost too much.

He shook his head. "No."

Once he was close, _too_ close, she looked away, down at the floor, at anything that wasn't him. The room felt hotter than it had outside, like all the air was being sucked into some invisible vacuum, and she wasn't expecting the finger that gently touched under her chin and lifted her face up towards his.

"Look at me."

He made it sound so easy, but it wasn't. Not when he was this close, and not when his fingers left her chin to brush over her cheek and gently move her hair behind her ear, all while he stared at her in a way that nearly caused her physical pain.

His face inched closer to hers excruciatingly slowly, and she knew why he was doing it. He was giving her time to push him away, tell him no, maybe slap him and then immediately fire him if the advance was _really_ unwanted.

But her voice was stuck uselessly in her throat, and she couldn't have said no even if she had wanted to. She held her breath as he drew closer, hearing her own heart pounding in her ears as what felt like an eternity passed between them. His eyes fluttered shut when the tip of his nose just grazed hers, and that was when she let her eyes close as well.

The first brush of his lips against hers was so gentle it almost hurt, barely enough to be called a kiss. It was experimental, and maybe her last chance to make him stop. But, far from it, she instead let out the faint, shaky breath she had been holding, and he opened his eyes just slightly as it washed over his lips.

Then she felt his hand slide fully into her hair, cradling her head as he _really_ kissed her. It wasn't the cautious brushing of a moment before, but instead a firm, even consuming kiss, one like nothing she had ever experienced before, from anyone. Her brain became mush and it felt like a firework had gone off in the middle of her chest, all of it utterly mesmerizing her as he angled her head further and then deepened the kiss. She was woefully out of practice when it came to this, but like when they had danced, she followed his lead.

Her hands had first flown to his forearms, and then as the kiss had grown into more, she cautiously slipped her hand up his arm and over his shoulder, going to his hair just above his neck, where her fingers gripped and held on as the moment of pure, complete bliss dragged on.

His left hand moved up her back and under her hair, to her upper back which was exposed by her dress, and she shivered from the coolness as he finally broke the kiss to suck in a breath. As soon as he had, he resumed his increasingly ravaging kiss, this time with a rough and yet also faint moan against her lips, and the sound and the feeling of it was a shock to every nerve ending in her body.

It was such a shock, in fact, that it shocked her right out of her daze, and she pulled away from him with a sudden quiet gasp. She stared up at him with wide eyes, and he stared back with new panic mixed with the smoldering heat within his own eyes. Her hand left his hair and hovered in midair for a moment as she panted, in shock that _that_ had just happened, and in real life, not just in her head.

And now she couldn't take it back or undo it.

"Summer -"

"No," she shook her head, pushing him off of her. He didn't fight her in the least, stumbling back a little bit as she started visibly panicking herself. "No, I can't."

She looked at him and saw his expression become pained, possibly regretful, like her distress was hurting him as much as it was her. She could process none of it, however, and it was all she could do to force her shaking legs to start moving and run her out of the kitchen and up the staircase to her room. He let her go, and she didn't stop until she was safe in her room, sliding down to the floor against the closed door and still trying to breathe through her racing heart.

One thought kept racing through her head, over and over, cutting through the haze and the panic and the _warmth_ that still tingling in her lips and fingertips, making her feel more drunken than she ever had without taking a single drink. This single thought, a solitary question, stayed with her the rest of the night, and when she eventually dragged herself to bed and fell into an uneasy sleep, nagged at her dreams. And the question, despite its simplicity, was not so easily answered.

_What have I done? _

* * *

This time, she was sure that she had royally screwed things up. There would surely be no going back to normal after what had happened. Summer awoke the next morning convinced of what lied ahead: a day spent avoiding Bucky, bolting at the first sign of him, and in general, acting like a guilty, freaked out, awkward mess.

The worst part of it all, she thought, was the fact that she had finally made a friend whose company she genuinely enjoyed and had gotten used to, and now that was probably ruined too. That was far worse than the nagging sense of guilt that wouldn't leave her head.

To her everlasting surprise, however, none of her predictions turned out to be true.

He ended up seeking her out on her morning checkup of the farm, catching up with her as she checked on the new litter of baby goats. They really were adorable, so much so that they had actually distracted her for a minute and paved the way for her to jump in surprise when she heard Bucky quietly greet from behind her, "Hey."

Straightening up from the pin, where she had been petting one of the goats, she looked behind her and felt the urge to panic immediately set in, but she controlled herself and quietly replied, "Hi."

He had his hands in the pockets of his jeans and a serious expression on his face as he regarded her, and she continued to fight the urge to flee as he gathered his words.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry," he finally said, and by his tone and the way he said it, she couldn't doubt his sincerity.

She shook her head and muttered, "I _really_ don't want to do this, so can we just..."

"No," he replied, "because if we don't, it'll never be the same and I don't want that."

"Don't you think we kind of crossed that bridge already?" she asked.

He paused and glanced down for a moment before saying, "What I'm saying is, I don't want to lose you as a friend because of one kiss."

"It wasn't exactly just one kiss," she blurted before she could think better of it. "I mean, it was..." She trailed off, eyes dropping and her cheeks heating up again as the memory of him moaning against her mouth made her very bones shudder.

"But you weren't ready for it," he said quietly. "And I should have known that. It was my fault."

"You didn't exactly force me," she muttered.

"Doesn't matter," he insisted.

She gave up trying to argue that point, then crossed her arms as she sighed and said, "So... what, now we just... act like it didn't happen and... move on?"

He shrugged a little and then admitted, "I won't forget it. I don't think you will either."

She blushed _again_, knowing that he was very right about that.

"But," he added, "that doesn't mean we can't move on."

She doubted that, but he sounded so sure of himself that she wondered if maybe they really could. They were both adults, both people who had seen a lot in their lifetimes - he more than her, she suspected - and in the grand scheme of things, maybe it really could be just one kiss.

She had been so sure that everything was ruined that now she could almost leap for joy at the thought that all may not be lost after all.

"Okay," she said, nodding. "Then... let's do that."

He smiled, and she let her crossed arms drop to her sides, hoping that he was right about all of this. She felt better now, though, and she would give going back to normal her best shot.

"To kind of start things off... mind giving me a hand with the horses before you get back to your normal stuff?"

He nodded, smile still on his face, and she took a deep breath before starting to walk towards the stables. Then one pressing thought popped into her head, and she decided to turn around and blurt it out before sticking to the whole "normal" thing.

"Was I okay at it?" she asked, watching confusion instantly bloom across his face.

"Okay at... kissing?" he asked, brows furrowed like her question was utterly bizarre.

"Yeah. Just because... it's been awhile, and I never really... anyway," she shrugged. "I'm just... curious."

He gave her a look and then asked, "Did _someone_ ever tell you were bad at it?"

She didn't know why she was surprised. He knew how to read between the lines. "Well..."

"You weren't bad at it," he assured her. "You felt kind of... shy at first. Then you started kissing me back and I..."

As he trailed off, she fought another blush uselessly and eventually replied, "... Oh. Okay. Um... thanks. For answering me, I mean."

He grinned when she flinched at her own rambling, and then she turned around, resuming her walk towards the stables and taking a deep breath, unsure of what now laid ahead.

_Back to normal_, she reminded herself. Only time would tell.

* * *

Time indeed passed, and with it, so did the lingering awkwardness that Summer was so hyperaware of. As the farm entered its second month without Marshall, she found herself in an immense state of relief due to how well she and Bucky really did seem to be moving on and getting back to normal. It was a weight off of her shoulders, and she fell happily back into the routine that they had created before. Her only source of stress continued to be Marshall and his impending return, knowing things would change again when he finally came back, and not for the better.

She pushed those thoughts away, though, and enjoyed what she had while it lasted. Despite the fact that both she and Bucky had agreed to leave the kiss behind them, that didn't mean that their sometimes very mild and other times not so mild flirtatious banter ceased to exist. He still said things that made her want to slam her head into a wall, and she still made his entire day with her reactions to those things. But even more than that, he was easy to talk to and even to confide in, and he had begun to open up more about his own life and stories. The more that she knew about him, and the more that she understood, the more that she cared about him in a way that made her worry greatly for the future.

Regardless of what he was to her, friend or maybe something more, if Marshall came back and fired Bucky for any of the myriad of reasons that he could pull out of the air, she'd lose the one light, the one real friend, that she had in her life. It seemed like she had only met him yesterday, but so much had happened in just over a month, and now she couldn't imagine going back to life without him there in _some_ capacity.

And that terrified her, because it seemed like the one thing that she could count on was having to go back to life without him at some point or another.

* * *

Two things happened when Marshall called one month and two weeks after his initial departure: he told Summer that he would be back within the week, and after an unexpected and bitter and utterly _ridiculous_ fight over her purchase of a new tractor following the old one giving out, she threw her phone at the wall and shattered it.

Not one single previous fight had ever encompassed so much of what was wrong with Marshall and what was wrong with being married to him. He thought that she was stupid, beneath himself, incapable of being trusted to make even basic purchases for a farm that he claimed that _he_ had invested his time and energy into rather than her. Everything was his - his farm, his money, his _wife_ who should do what he said and never so much as lift a finger without asking him first if it was okay. She was just an extension of the property, and that was all she had ever been, all she would ever be until she could finally break free - if she ever truly could.

And he would be back in a matter of days, ruining the break of actual happiness that she'd had while he had been gone.

She almost wished that he'd never left, that she hadn't had a taste of a better life, because now rather than be safe under the numbness that she was used to, life would be _unbearable_.

Far from numb, her veins coursed with anger focused mostly at Marshall but also, to a large degree, herself. She was the one dumb enough to marry him, dumb enough to still be married to him, still be here, _still_ letting him get to her like this. It would never matter how fully she knew that he was wrong about her, and wrong about everything - he still knew the weaknesses in her armor, the places he could hit that would always hurt her on some level. He could still get in her head, and having this happen now, having him come back in a few days and inevitably put her one source of happiness in jeopardy - it utterly _enraged_ her.

And so, she tore out of her room, ignoring the broken phone on the floor near the doorway, and she simply kept walking. She stomped down the stairs, through the hallway and out the door, into the cool night. It was nearly midnight, but she didn't think twice about her destination. She needed a place to break things, to scream with anger if she needed to, and that place was the barn.

Once she got there, she went inside, slammed the door, and then proceeded to rip the place apart as good as she could possibly hope to. She smashed some empty mason jars against the wall, imagining that the wall was Marshall, and when she ran out of those, she opted for grabbing a shovel and trying to destroy random things with it. She didn't stop until she heard a voice ask in a highly concerned tone, "What the hell are you doing?"

Lowering the shovel, which she had been whacking against a 2x4, she turned around and wanted to curse the very universe itself. _Of course _he would come out here, looking like he had just rolled out bed and came to investigate the weird sounds coming from the barn - which was probably exactly what had occurred. Whatever the case, his messy hair, white tank top and probably hastily-thrown on jeans were not helping anything.

"What's it look like I'm doing?" she shot back. "And what's your problem? It's my farm. I can do what I want."

His mouth opened but nothing came out, and she took the opportunity to throw the shovel across the barn and ask as it fell with a loud clatter, "Or are you gonna tell me that it's not really my farm either? You've been here a whole five minutes, so you know everything about the place, right? You can be honest. I won't fire you. Apparently I _can't_ fire you, because it wasn't my douchebag dad who croaked and left me the place!"

He furrowed his brows in confusion, but she stepped closer to him and kept right on ranting. "Seriously, tell me. Tell me everything you really think of me, because I know you haven't yet. Tell me I'm stupid and pathetic for staying here, for being married to that piece of garbage in the first place, because it's true. I know it is."

"Summer, stop," Bucky said quietly, frowning at her self-harmful outbursts.

"No," she shook her head. "No, I'm not gonna stop. I want to hear you say it. I know you have to think it."

"I don't," he replied.

"Oh, sure you don't. But you know, maybe I shouldn't expect an honest answer out of a guy who would corner a married woman in her own kitchen, the wife of his freaking boss, and kiss her, and get so deep into her head that she can't think straight half the time."

And thus, in one spectacularly poorly dreamed up sentence, Summer brought up the past that they had both agreed to let go of, insulted Bucky, essentially call him a loser and a home wrecker, and as the finishing touch, accidentally confessed the degree to which he and that kiss had utterly consumed her.

She suddenly fell silent, mild horror overcoming her. Bucky, for his part, had not believed a word out of her mouth until the last few words had left her lips. Her jabs had all gone right through him, as he knew that she was angry and using him as little more than target practice in lieu of the real source of her anger. But that little bit of truth amidst the verbal waste had clearly not gone unheeded, and the look in his eyes made her have to look away.

When she did, she saw the extent of the damage that she had inflicted on the barn. It wasn't anything even halfway substantial - if anything, it looked sort of like some idiot drunken teenager had wandered in and decided to commit some very poorly conceived vandalism and property damage.

She couldn't even properly angrily tear up a barn, she thought miserably, shoulders slumping as she trudged over to a wall clear of shattered glass. She leaned against it and then slid down to the hay-covered floor, leaning her head against her raised knees and muttering, "God, I am an idiot."

Only a moment passed before he came over and sat next to her, staying silent as she tried to finish calming down. Eventually she relaxed her knees and raised her head back up, muttering, "He'll be back in a few days."

"Is that what caused... all of this?"

She shook her head. "No. He chewed me out because I bought a new tractor with 'his' money. So I got pissed and it blew up into this big stupid fight and..." she blew out a breath and dropped her head back against the wall. "After all this time and everything he's done to me, I _still_ let him get to me."

Bucky didn't say anything, and he didn't have to. His simple presence was enough, at least for now.

"I did ask you if I was bad at kissing because of him," she admitted, her skin crawling at the unpleasant truth. "He used to tell me I was doing it wrong if I wasn't doing it the way that he did. God forbid I try to mix it up sometimes." Then she swallowed her discomfort at her next words and added, "And he was the same way with... other things. Everything was always my fault. His lack of... success with... getting things to... happen. Wasn't his fault, of course. It was mine."

"You mean..."

She nodded hastily, wishing she hadn't brought it up at all, but she needed to get all of this out of her system. "Yeah. Same thing with everything else in life. He hit me that one time because I 'pushed' him to do it. Counseling never worked for us because I wasn't really trying. I lost our baby because I obviously hadn't been eating good and wasn't healthy enough."

She froze when she realized what she had said, and she closed her eyes in dismay. She had done a very good job of keeping that last bit to herself, and now here she went and just blurted it out.

She was afraid to look at Bucky, because the last thing she wanted to see on his face, or anyone's face, was pity, but it would hurt even more coming from him. But, when she did manage to glance his way, she was surprised to see anger as the dominant emotion on his face. He looked a bit horrified as well, in addition to being angry as hell on her behalf, but there wasn't a trace of pity. She let out a breath of relief.

The relief was short lived, however. She looked away from him and shook her head, muttering, "And this why I'm an idiot for still being here. What kind of woman would stay after all of that? Even if I'm not _with_ him, I'm still... here. I still have his last name."

"... It's not always that simple," he said quietly. "I haven't been in your shoes, but... I think that you've done the best you can with what you had." Then he added after she looked at him, "And you're _not_ stupid. You're nothing he says you are."

She smiled a little and asked, "He's known me for seven years. You've known me for about seven weeks."

"I knew he was bad when I saw the way he grabbed your arm to walk you away after you met me," he said quietly. "He grabbed you the way I grab cattle. Then he tried to force a kiss on you when even I could tell that you wanted nothing to do with him."

Her eyes widened and she nearly gasped, "You... saw that?"

He nodded. "Maybe you can't see it because you've been in the middle of this for so long, but to me, and everybody else here, it's obvious."

"What is?"

He looked down at his hands in his lap, clearly trying to figure out how to say the words right. "You're this... bubbly, happy, funny person underneath what he's tried to turn you into, but it's like you're afraid to be yourself. You walk around with your guard up and it's almost like you're afraid to laugh or... feel anything."

Disheartened, she looked away and leaned her head back again as she muttered, "That's because I am. It's easier not to feel anything. That way when nothing changes and everything's still miserable, it doesn't hurt. It's just another day."

"That's not living," he said.

She turned towards him again, curiosity overtaking her as she asked, "What is?"

He stared at her a moment, silence passing by before he replied, "I'm still figuring that out."

"Aren't we all," she sighed. Then after a moment, she muttered, "My problems must seem so... small to someone like you. You've been at war and have a freaking metal arm, and here I am whining about my own stupid mistakes."

"Do you hear yourself when you talk like that?"

"I mean yeah, I do, but it's true, and -"

"No," he shook his head, "I mean do you hear yourself or do you hear him?"

Suddenly understanding his meaning, it clicked in her head and she felt another wave of melancholy threaten to wash over her. "Oh." Then she stared ahead of them, towards the glass shattered on the other side of the barn. "My God. You're right."

Then she sat there, working through the horror settling into her head as she realized that it was really was true, that all of the nitpicking and self-criticism she subjected herself to could all pass for quotes from Marshall himself. She might have never noticed if Bucky had not shared his insight, and it was a remarkable thing, considering how he didn't even know Marshall and had not even known her for two months.

"It's... hard," he said quietly, a little while later, and she turned to watch him as he spoke. "When someone gets inside your head and... changes you. Makes it hard to remember who you are, what's them and what's you. Takes time to get them out."

The way that he said those words belied a dark past, and she could only imagine what that meant for a man with his history. But then he turned and met her eyes, saying, "So no. I don't think your problems are small."

She nodded slightly, then felt a herself smile genuinely for the first time since Marshall had called, though it was a small smile. "Thank you for listening. And for getting me to stop freaking out and trying to break things."

He nodded, faint smile touching his lips as he replied, "I thought one of the animals had gotten loose or there was a thief or something."

She chuckled. "No, just me taking out my rage on the poor barn. I'm gonna have to clean up that glass in a few minutes."

"I'll get it," he shook his head. "You should go and try to sleep." Then the faintest of smirks quirked his lips and he added, "Might help you think straighter."

_God_, how she regretted that comment. Nothing good could come of him knowing. It was one thing for her never-ending blushes to give away some of his effect on her, but saying it out loud... now she really _had_ gone and changed things.

But it didn't matter. Pretty soon his visits to her porch would have to stop, and there could be very few future heart to hearts on the barn floor. Maybe she could get away with a few brief conversations when they were both working, but if Marshall caught even a glimpse of the friendship and the banter that they had established, Bucky would be gone within the day, and she could _not_ let that happen.

"You're gonna stay away when he comes back, right?" she asked quietly. "You're gonna... be smart about it?"

The previously slightly playful expression on his face fell a little, and he frowned as he looked down and muttered, "... I don't know if I can."

"But... I mean... we'll still be able to talk, and there's certain parts of the property he never goes to, like my garden. We can go there and talk when he's busy. And he leaves a lot during the day because of his business. We can figure it out. Be smart about it."

"If I didn't know better," he said with a certain glimmer in his eye, "it almost sounds like you plan on sneaking me around like some kind of... secret lover."

She wished he would just stop saying that word, _lover_. It was only the second time, but the shiver that shot down her spine was as immediate as it had been the first time. "Well... regardless of what we do or... don't do... that's how he'll see you if he catches us. So just... please be careful."

He nodded, eyes locking with hers. "I will."

She smiled again, quietly saying, "Thank you again."

His smile mirrored hers, but his eyes flickering to her lips for a fraction of a second made her heart skip a beat. She was suddenly aware of how close they were, his shoulder nearly resting against hers and both of them leaned in one another's direction. Everything was quiet aside from the sound of crickets and the occasional noise from an animal that wasn't quite asleep yet, and she knew that she really should get up and go, but she simply had no motivation to move an inch, let alone break the eye contact that he had locked her into.

She couldn't shake the sense of impending loss, of the looming downward turn that life was taking again in a few days. Now that there was so little time left, the desire to make the most of it was suddenly overwhelming, but the problem was, she didn't know where to even start.

It didn't help that she really _couldn't_ think straight when he was looking at her like that.

The one thing that came to mind, the one thing that she couldn't get _out_ of her mind, was the one thing that she knew she shouldn't do. But sitting here this close to him, the memory of their only kiss at the forefront of her mind alongside that nagging sense of coming loss, she was helpless to fight it or even think about coming to her senses.

She leaned in closer, timidly and slowly, and there was no mistaking the surprise on his face as she did. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, and she could tell that he was holding his breath, just like she had in that moment before he had kissed her in her kitchen.

She couldn't bear to stop herself. Just one more time, she reasoned, one more and then she would never do it again.

She closed her eyes, and she kissed him. It was soft and small and far from confident, nothing near the kind of consuming fire that he had thrust upon her before, but it was honest, and it was from a place that had been dead for so long that she had forgotten what it was like to want nothing more than to feel someone else's lips on your own. It was almost innocent, both the way she kissed him and why she did, while feeling like a stolen taste of forbidden fruit at the very same time.

When she pulled away, she opened her eyes and found him staring at her with darker, surprised, heavier eyes, his lips parted following her kiss, and her face heated up so quickly it almost made it hard to breathe.

"I'm sorry," she half-whispered. "I shouldn't have done that. I just wanted to... one more time, just to..."

Before she could continue to struggle for words, he leaned forward and grabbed her face with both hands, pulling her back to him and kissing her with a gentle fury. It felt like something between getting hit by a train and taking a potent hit of the best drug in existence. It was like the first time but somehow even better, and she lost what little control she had over herself as she kissed him back, hands going to his chest as one of his moved into her hair, the other one sliding down over her shoulder to her side, where it curled and pulled her even closer.

If she was his shot of whiskey, then he was the match that set it on fire and burned everything around it.

He broke away first, sucking in a breath of air as his hand in her hair gently restrained her from attacking him again. He looked into her eyes, then the flushed state of her cheeks, her parted lips that she was already panting through, and then he asked in a low voice laced with obvious desire, "Summer, are you... are you sure?"

She wasn't entirely sure all that his question encompassed, but she also didn't think it really mattered at that current moment. She could only move her hands up over his shoulders and neck, tangling her fingers in his mess of short dark hair as she replied, "Please don't stop."

His jaw clenched at her words, eyes darkening even more just before he pulled her close again, kissing her an even greater vengeance that she returned with every fiber of her being. She wasn't expecting it when he then tightened his arm around her waist and pulled her snugly into his lap, the loose skirt of her dress rising and pooling over them as she let out a surprised moan at the movement. The sound made him open his eyes and draw back by a fraction, and when she saw the predatory, hungry look in his eye as both hands went to her hips and pushed them down against his, she realized the extent of what she had just gotten herself into.

"Oh my God," she gasped a little, feeling him so incredibly hard underneath her, which was something that must have happened _incredibly_ quickly, and the grin that he shot her made her blush harder than she possibly ever had before. Then his lips were at her neck, kissing and suckling gently as she gripped his hair and tried not to lose it as his hands continued to move her hips slowly against him. Then her eyes shot open amidst the firestorm of unfamiliar sensations and she pulled on his hair a little as she exclaimed, "Don't leave any marks!"

He groaned, panting against the curve of her neck as he said, "I want to." Then he raised his head and killed her a little more with the way that he looked into her eyes. "I... you have... no idea what it's been like."

"I might," she replied, swallowing hard now that they were still for a moment, though his hands never stopped moving - through her hair, down her back, on her waist, and now, one on her leg, moving painfully slowly up the hem of her dress.

He shook his head, kissing her lips again and then murmuring as he dragged his lips across her cheek, towards her ear, "Every day, watching you, knowing I couldn't have you..."

Her insides flipped and she couldn't breathe, closing her eyes as he kissed under her ear and hissed into it, "You torture me and you don't even know it."

His teeth tugged at her ear lobe, and her jaw dropped as her hand in his hair tightened. _She_ tortured _him_?! "I... what?"

The hand under her skirt had stopped when it brushed against lace on her hip, and now it gripped her gently there as his metal fingers made her shiver as they brushed her cheek. He drew back, locking eyes with her again as he said, "You might not think straight but I can't think at all."

Mouth now perpetually open thanks to what he was telling her, she just stared at him and found herself utterly speechless.

Past the point of being overwhelmed already, she buried her fingers in his hair and crashed her lips to his, stunned that he could feel that way about her and apparently had for awhile now. She knocked his head back against the wall with her fervor, and he groaned in a way that made her burn even more than she already was. She didn't care if she was doing it "right" or if she lacked skill, because none of that mattered at the moment and whatever she was doing, she had ample evidence that it was working _extremely_ well.

When she came up for air, he panted against her lips with his forehead against hers and said in a breathless, rough voice, "If you don't make me stop, I won't. I can't."

_Now_ she understood what he had probably meant when this had first started.

"But I will if you tell me to."

Heart pounding in her ears, breath nearly nonexistent and senses already on overload, she realized that this was likely the fabled "point of no return", her chance to stop and realize what she was about to do it she went on, and alternatively, what she would miss if she did not.

But there had never been a choice to make, not really. For all of her bad decisions, this somehow felt like the best one that she had made in years.

She shook her head. "I won't tell you to stop."

"You have to be sure," he said, and she could almost see him hanging on to his last fraying bit of self control.

"I'm sure," she assured him sincerely. When he still hesitated, she leaned in and placed another soft, sweet kiss on his lips, and nearly whined, "Please..."

The frayed bit snapped, and he groaned as he kissed her almost desperately. Her heart swelled and her mind went blank despite how nervous she was deep down about what she had just asked for, but none of that touched her thoughts as she felt his metal arm slide around her waist and then pull her unbearably tight against them as he effortlessly stood them both up. Her legs automatically went around his waist, and he stumbled back against the wall briefly as they refused to break their kiss, but not because of a balance issue or a lack of strength. No, he was just _that_ affected, and he pushed off of the wall with a slight growl and then started walking them across the barn.

She paid no attention to where they were going, so when he stopped and continued to kiss her thoroughly as he laid her down on a soft, loose pile of hay, it came as a slight surprise. He finally broke away from her lips as he gently lowered himself on top of her, looking her in the eyes as he did. He eased one of her legs further from the other so he could lay between them, and then he was kissing her neck again, careful to remember her admonishment not to leave marks where others could see.

Her hands became more courageous the lower his mouth crept along her neck, leaving his hair to run along his shoulders and then down his arms, and when she did, his metal one grew louder in its clicks and soft sounds. It was fascinating, and while her other hand went to his back, she kept one on that arm, dragging her fingers up and down, making it almost purr.

When two of her fingers ghosted down his forearm, he smiled and chuckled against her collarbone, and she immediately asked, "What?"

"It tickles," he replied, peeking up at her with that maddening grin on his face. She smiled back and then did it again, and this time he jerked the arm back and halfheartedly protested, "Stop..."

"Okay," she conceded, biting her lip as the playful grin shrunk into something more threatening as he kissed along the neckline of her dress, looking up at her as he did. Then, as his chin brushed the fabric of the dress, that metal hand moved from where it was planted next to her head and ran over the right strap of her dress. He peeked up again as it moved further down, and he maintained searing eye contact with her as the hand brushed over her breast through the fabric. Her breath hitched, and then when he squeezed, her eyes closed all on their own, that simple, indirect touch making her have to bite back an embarrassingly loud moan.

Then, unexpectedly, his lips were on hers again, and both of his hands were on her chest, still only through the dress, as his tongue tangled maddeningly with hers. Once it became impossible to breathe again, he broke away and murmured in a gravelly voice, "You're not wearing a bra."

She merely made an incoherent sound in reply, and one of his hands moved up to slowly pull one of the straps down as he kissed her again and then said, "You didn't wear one that day it rained, either..." She opened her eyes and took a steadying breath as he kissed his way to her ear, adding, "You were wearing the white dress with the flowers on it, and you were in your garden when it started pouring. And I had to stand there and watch you run inside - _run_ \- in a dress that was _wet_ and _see through_..."

"... I had really hoped that you didn't see that," she squeaked, looking up at him shyly as he looked down at her, pure, liquid, unbearable lust in his eyes.

"I did," he said, other hand pulling down her other strap as he spoke. "I saw everything. And then I went back to my room to wait for the rain to stop, and I..."

"... Took a cold shower?" she guessed, not sure if she could handle it if he said something _else_.

He smiled down at her like he found her adorable and completely maddening at the same time. Then he shook his head. "No." Then his right hand took her left one from its current place on his upper arm, and she held her breath as he guided it down between them, placing it somewhere she'd never touched before and nearly making her pass out before they had even taken off a single article of clothing. "No, not a cold shower."

"... Oh," she said dumbly, knowing that as long as she lived, she would _never_ forget the images that he had just put in her head.

"I told you you torture me," he rasped before he kissed her, his hand letting go of hers to resume his task of slowly peeling the top of her dress down. She gulped and let her hand move to his side, closing her eyes as he gently pulled the fabric down and kissed his way there, though he stopped just before he reached the newly exposed mounds of flesh. She cracked open her eyes and found him staring down as his hands slowly took them in their gentle grasps, and between that and the way that he licked his lips as he watched his own hands squeeze and caress, she couldn't help it - her nails bit into his side through his shirt, and she let out a moan that she wasn't even coherent enough to find humiliating.

Then what she felt was utterly eclipsed by the addition of his mouth to his hands, and her hands shot to his hair where they held on like her life depended on it. She was utterly bewildered, at a loss for how just this could drive her _this_ crazy, make her feel so close to a brink that nobody other than herself had ever brought her to before. This was so beyond anything else she had ever experienced, from the gentle but intense passion of his touch to the sounds escaping his throat as he kissed and licked his way from one breast to the other, the vibrations of his voice making everything even better, she thought she just might combust into flames and burn down the whole barn before he even got her dress all the way off.

By the time that he had begun to move back up her body, he had left marks along each breast, from the tops to the sides and even along her ribs beneath, and it had been obvious what he was doing, even to her short-circuiting brain, and after he had kissed her lips again, he murmured, "You didn't say I couldn't mark you where only I'll see."

She shivered, taking a deep breath, that one single sentence meaning far more to her than it did on the surface. Not only was it slightly possessive and entirely sexy, but it was a promise that this wasn't a one time thing, and that he planned on seeing her like this again and again. It made her heart swell with a sudden burst of elation, and at that moment, nothing else mattered but the two of them, and these moments together.

She pulled him down and kissed him harder than she had dared to until now, matching his fervor and wrapping a leg over his hip as he ground against her, gasping into her mouth with every new motion of their hips, and finally it all became too much. She broke away from the kiss and managed to flip them over, rolling him on his back in the hay and taking her place on top of him. As his head fell back and his eyes drank her in, her long hair already a mess and dress bunched at her hips, hands planted on his chest, she felt a surge of something within that she couldn't comprehend quite yet.

The first thing she did was push up the bottom of his white tank top, then grip it as he showed off his upper body strength by lifting up from the hay and holding his arms up so she could tear it off of him. She tossed it aside as he laid back down, and her plans to devour him were abruptly delayed as her gaze went to his left shoulder, marking the first time she had ever seen where metal met flesh.

For some reason, she had never wondered about how it must look there, or what kind of scarring that he had, because it didn't matter to her. But, seeing it now, the raised white lines and violent evidence of what looked like it had been a _horrible_ operation, it mattered, because the thought of him enduring whatever had happened to make him like this...

"Summer?"

His voice was small, suddenly uncertain, more so than she had ever heard it before, and she met his gaze and blinked. There were tears prickling at the back of her eyes, but she wouldn't let them fall, not now. She blinked them away, then brought a few of her fingertips to the scars, where she gently traced them. He shivered and watched her fingers, his expression giving away his insecurity. In an effort to erase it, she leaned down and pressed her lips to the marks, all while she slid her fingers down his metal arm the way that she had earlier, and just like then, as she touched it more, its noises slowly grew louder and faster.

Her mouth followed the scars to where they ended on his chest, and she felt his shudders grow along with the shakiness of his breaths as she kissed and nipped her way down. She had never touched a man who was as toned and broad as he, so she took her time in getting familiar with what his muscles felt like under her fingertips and lips. She had reached his belt and reached her hands to undo it, but then his hand gripped a handful of her hair and pulled her back up, pulling her down so that his mouth could ravage hers once more.

When his hands went to her hips, she grabbed them and pulled them away, placing them down on either side of his head as she held them there. He opened his eyes and broke the kiss, looking up at her with an even greater heat in his eyes than before, and she suddenly understood what it was that she had felt when she first got on top of him.

She had spent years doing the same thing with the same man in the exact same way, sometimes even on the same days of the week, and none of them involved her having even a semblance of control over what they did, what she felt, and if it was worth her while. But now, straddling a man who was looking up at her like she was nothing short of a goddess, and _feeling_ how wholly and desperately he wanted her, needed her, she had the chance to do something she had never done before, and reclaim a sense of power that she had never really realized had been taken from her.

Slowly, she rolled her hips against his, still holding his hands down, and his sharp hiss of a breath that he took and slight rolling of his eyes spurred her on and helped her tentative confidence grow. She lowered herself down, kissing his neck and letting go of his hands so he could roam them all over her, all while she moved against him harder, faster, making noises she could only describe as completely sinful pour from his open mouth.

Then, suddenly, right as his noises had begun to reach a fever pitch and nearly make her fall apart just from the sound of them, his hands seized her hips, making them stop, and he gasped, "Stop, stop, stop."

Momentarily thinking automatically that she had done something wrong, her head shot up and she looked down at his face, only to find his eyes squeezed shut and eyebrows furrowed as he breathed deeply, as if to steady himself and to not...

Oh.

She grinned and blushed, just in time for his eyes to open and see the shyly satisfied look on her face. He then let out a deep breath and sat up, pressing himself against her chest to chest. "You're even more perfect than I imagined."

Her shy smile grew, and his metal hand lifted to her face to brush her hair behind her ear before he kissed her. After, his fingertips lingered on her jaw, and as he began kissing her neck, she closed her eyes and thought of all the things she had never gotten to do before, all of the times she had been left frustrated and unsatisfied and unable to try anything that she wanted to, even if it wasn't for her own benefit. His tongue flicked against her pulse, and his metal thumb grazed over her bottom lip, and with her eyes still closed, she kissed the tip of it. His teeth nipped at her, before his tongue soothed it over, and she gasped, her lips parting, and before she could think about it, she closed her lips around his thumb and sucked it into her mouth.

Slowly, he stopped what he was doing and raised his head, and she didn't stop. As her tongue played with the thumb in between her lips sucking on it, the noises from his arm steadily increased. Then he pulled the thumb away, and her eyes popped open to look at him questioningly, but then his middle and index finger were there on her bottom lip, and she understood. She drew those fingers into her mouth, this time maintaining eye contact with him as she licked and suckled, and as satisfying as it was to watch his mouth drop open further and eyes greedily take in the sight, it might have been even better to listen to his arm go crazy. She just hadn't anticipated how crazy it would go.

The first thrum of vibration she felt against her lips made her stop almost immediately, widening her eyes but not releasing his fingers. She looked at him in alarm, but he just looked at his own hand and grinned as the vibration grew stronger.

Then he gently drew his hand away, and she half-gasped, "Your arm... it can... it vibrates? But how is that - oh..."

His hand now between them, somewhere that the vibration could be put to much better use, she gasped and let her head fall back. He dropped his own head down, kissing along her neck and then back down to her chest, the combined and partially entirely unexpected sensations making her moan shamelessly up towards the rafters.

And so, it was a shock to them both when Summer put her hand on his arm and made him stop, pulling his head back as well as she gasped, "Hold on, I don't... I don't know if I can... do this."

She had never seen someone's face fall so completely and wholly. Bucky stared at her in absolute horror for a moment before choking out, "But I thought... you said you were sure, and I -"

"No, no, I don't mean that," she clarified, panting still from everything they had done together. "I meant... this. I don't know if it'll... work. It never did before and I don't... I don't know. I don't want to disappoint you, or..."

Realization dawned on his face, and the horror that had been there before faded in an instant. "Summer," he said with a breathless chuckle, "I don't think you _could_ disappoint me."

"But... if... if because of me you can't get it to work, then..."

Suddenly he seized her chin, grabbing her attention as he said, "I'll get it to work, I promise. I'll make _you_ work." Then he kissed her lips and murmured, "More than once."

She looked up at him, biting her lip, desperately wanting that to be true. "But -"

"Shhh," he murmured against her lips, his arms enclosing around her and shifting them, laying her back down in the hay as his hands went to drag her dress off of her completely, all while she looked up him with slightly wide, mildly anxious, eyes. Once her dress was off, he lowered himself on top of her, briefly biting his own lip as he once again drank in the sight of her before he locked eyes with her and said in a voice dripping with purpose and pent up desire, "The first thing that I'm gonna do is something I get the feeling nobody's ever done for you before."

Her eyes widened slightly, and she stuttered, "You mean... your mouth on my..."

He nodded, sparing her from having to say anything else. "Yes. Am I right?"

She nodded, a blush on her cheeks blooming already, well in advance of the fruition of his words.

"All you have to do is relax," he said, fingers running sweetly through her hair, "and trust me. Can you do that?"

She nodded, though her cheeks were still aflame and even her ears were burning.

"Good," he said, kissing her lips softly. "And then after that..." he trailed down her neck, kissing and touching as he went, "after you catch your breath... you'll be ready for what I'll do next."

"What's... what's next?" she asked breathlessly, his mouth back on her beast, teasing and making her thighs clench while his hand equally teased the other.

"Next," he murmured between kisses, moving down over her ribs, "next you'll finish undressing me. You can do whatever you want to me... I only _need_ one thing before the night is over."

"Which is?" she asked in too-high of a pitch as he drove her crazy with anticipation, kissing under her navel and moving lower painstakingly slowly.

She felt him smile against her skin, and then he turned on his cheek and looked up at her as he replied, "You're gonna ride me, as slow and easy or as hard and fast as you like." His hands then gently pulled her underwear from her hips, and he added, "I know you want to, from the way you were moving on me before. You never got to do it much, did you?"

"Never," she gasped out as his fingers slid up her inner thighs.

"Never," he scoffed quietly, like it was a shame, inching his face down slowly. "Well, you're going to now. And I'm gonna show you how good it can be for you."

About to lose her mind from the waiting and the slight anxiety of the unknown and all of these new things that were coming her way, she shakily asked, "And - and then what?"

"After you catch your breath _again_," he chuckled, "then it's my turn, and I'm gonna take you the way I imagined it in my head after I saw you in that wet see through dress."

She was going to die, pure and simple. But it was going to be the best death in the history of all humanity.

As he parted her legs and started kissing a trail up her thigh, she dropped an arm over her eyes and asked, "... What way is that?"

He chuckled, and she jumped from the vibration of his voice, which made him chuckle even more. "I've seen you stretch outside, sometimes before you go riding. You can almost lift your foot over your head - I'd bet that you can," he said, kisses growing more and more open mouthed on her in between his words and noisy intakes of breath. "I couldn't stop thinking about you under me, your leg over my shoulder, nails scratching down my back and your other hand grabbing the sheet while you try not to scream my name..."

"... You walked around thinking about that," she said in a strangled, tortured voice, shocked that she could even speak at all, in the process of completely losing her mind.

"No," came his amused reply as he looked up and grinned at how she was covering her eyes and squirming beyond control. "I laid in my bed thinking about that, and you have no idea how fast thinking about you like that made me come."

She wasn't sure that there was a word in the English language that could adequately the sort of sound that came out of her mouth, and if there was such a thing as a full-bodied blush, she had just achieved it. Nobody had ever spoken to her like this before, or to the best of her knowledge, thought of her like that either, at least to that degree. Just the slightest suggestion of the visual that he had put in her head, of him in his room across the property, lying on his bed with his eyes shut tight and mouth slightly open as he breathed heavily, maybe with one hand gripping his own hair while the other...

She was suddenly lost to the thought, at least until she felt a gentle but sharp bite on the very top of her inner thigh. "Watch me, Summer."

She moaned shamelessly at just his words, face erupting in a blush of epic proportions as she did as he said, already on the brink just from the sheer, shameless hunger in his eyes and the utterly predatory smile on his face, not to mention his words and the effect they had on her.

"Don't take your eyes off me," he added. She nodded, breathing in short bursts, flushed all over, utterly at his mercy, and yet feeling safer than she had in years.

The first touch saw stars burst behind her eyes. She tried to keep her promise to watch him, but the best kept promises ended up being the ones that he had made. Not only did he keep them, but he exceeded them, shattered her previous experiences and left her hanging on to reality by a thread, over and _over_ again. He was danger and safety and trust and the _unknown_ all in one, everything she had ever thought he was and so much more.

In one night, he helped her overcome years' worth of self doubt and insecurities, just by showing her that she _wasn't_ strange or abnormal or otherwise at fault for other people's failures. It would take much more than one night to rid her mind of the negative and critical voice that took up residence within it, but it was a stunning, incredibly significant start, and it was also the best night that she'd ever had in her twenty six years.

He knew, somehow, how to push her and yet make her feel safe and secure enough to do it. He let her take control when she wanted it, took it back when she didn't, and he showed her what made intimacy actually _intimate_, as opposed all she had ever known before.

It was perfection, and it was only over when she could not physically handle anymore. Everything happened just as he said it would, except she had to catch her breath _quite_ a bit more than one or two times. She had lost count, and numbers were the last thing from her mind as she laid collapsed in the hay after what had felt like an eternity of maddening, beautiful, _perfect_ pleasure.

In her delirium after, she noticed that he had left her side, but he came back almost as soon as she had noticed his absence. She peered up at him with heavy, exhausted eyes, then chuckled when she saw him carrying over a black sheet that had been covering up a piece of equipment in the corner. It was old but it would do, especially since she physically could not move from her place sprawled out in the hay.

She groaned sleepily as he took his place beside her again, casting the sheet over both of them before drawing her close, cradling her to his side with his right arm supporting her head. He kissed her forehead and she looked up at him, a hint of shyness there lingering even after all that they had done to each other.

"Sleep," he said softly, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"What if someone comes in here?" she asked, snuggling in closer and closing her eyes anyway.

"Nobody will. Even if they did," he chuckled, "nobody would be surprised."

"Right," she muttered. Then, after a moment or two of silence, as both of their breaths evened out slowly, she half-whispered, "Thank you for not leaving me."

He looked down at her, his eyes as soft and sleepy as hers as he nodded. "I'm not going anywhere."

She smiled, knowing that those words carried a double meaning. He didn't just mean tonight, she could not doubt that in the slightest.

And so she slept, under the shelter of the barn and in the safety of Bucky's arms, refusing to think about what challenges lay ahead and how everything had just gotten even harder now that they had taken this step. It could all wait until morning, until the dawn made them both face it. For now, she enjoyed how it felt to sleep in arms that she truly, wholly trusted, for the first time in her life.

* * *

Dawn, and its unforgiving, unrepentant brightness, had a habit of changing everything. But when Summer awoke to soft rather than glaring light filtering gently into the barn, coaxing her towards a new day, and the aftermath of what she had done, it soon became clear that dawn had changed nothing.

Bucky was still there, still sleeping beside her. She had slept on his chest, her hair a tangled, giant mess of knots and hay spilling over his flesh arm and shoulder that still held her against him. Afraid to wake him, she moved as slowly as she could to peek up at him, and as soon as she saw the peaceful, content look on a face that rarely looked so carefree or at ease, she was grateful that she had.

As the memories flooded her brain, she was surprised to find that a wave of guilt didn't follow right behind. She expected the morning after to be full of misery on her end, of self-criticism and an endless amount of angst, but instead... she felt almost peaceful.

She was still fearful of what would happen next. She knew that there was a huge chance that this wouldn't end well, just as she knew that there was surely no going back. The night before had been life-changing, mind-altering, and so much more than a simple, and literal, roll in the hay with a guy who happened to show up and say the right things to her.

It was more. It was substantial. It was _unforgettable_. She could never be the same.

It was so huge, such an overwhelming thing despite her inner peace about it, that she couldn't help but wonder in those quiet, early morning moments if she would find herself alone in this one he awoke. His words from the night before were branded on her mind, the ones about how he had watched her and wanted her for so long and how she _tortured_ him, but maybe now that he'd had her... maybe things would change. She had read a double meaning in his words when he had told her that he wasn't going anywhere, but maybe that had been wishful thinking. Maybe he'd slip through her fingers and she would be alone again, left with the true torture of having a taste of something only to have it taken away.

It was while her mind raced through these thoughts that he stirred beneath her, slowly waking up from his slumber as she began to hold her breath. Now that she had gone and made herself nervous instead of relishing the peace of a few moments before, she didn't dare move as he woke up, and she even began to consider pretending to still be asleep just to stall the impending rejection that she had convinced herself was coming.

The arm that had been loosely still holding her to him tightened a bit, and his legs slid with hers as took a deep breath that she felt as his chest rose and fell under her cheek. Then his hand moved up, fingertips playing gently with the ends of her hair before starting to brush through it, moving her hair away from her face and making her eyelids flutter shut with the comforting motion.

As her lashes tickled his skin, she felt him chuckle a little. "How long have you been awake?"

Now that she was caught, she let him shift her so that leaned back in his arms, her eyes meeting his sleepy ones as he smiled softly down at her. "A few minutes," she answered, searching his face for clues as to what would happen next.

He nodded, his free left hand taking the task of running his fingertips through her hair so the other arm could hold her closer to his side. "I'm... surprised."

She furrowed her brows. "Surprised at what?"

"I almost expected to wake up and find you gone," he said quietly, looking her over as his cool thumb brushed her cheek.

"Me?" she asked in disbelief.

"The only thing I was scared of last night," he said, "was you running away today."

She shook her head. "Well... the thing is, I don't think I physically even _could_ run right now if I wanted to."

He chuckled, and it was a deep, comforting rumble from his chest against hers, and she closed her eyes when he pressed a kiss to her forehead. "Sorry about that."

"No you're not."

"... You're right," he replied, shifting so that his face was more level with hers. He seemed to search her face the way she searched his before he asked quietly, "So... what now?"

She stared at him, mind blank for a moment before she blinked and replied, "I... well... are you hungry?"

He smiled warmly before shaking his head and replying, "I meant _next_."

She paused, anxiety suddenly back as she realized that _this_ was the moment that she had been so terrified of. "... What do you want to happen next?" she asked quietly, almost timidly.

"The thing is," he began, and she held her breath. "I'm leaving this up to you."

"Why?" she asked, stomach in knots, thinking the worst.

"Because nothing ever is," he replied. "And you deserve better than that. So I want you to choose. If you want me, you'll have me. If you don't, if the timing scares you, if _he_ scares you - then I won't chase you and..."

"You'll leave?"

He looked at her for a moment and then shook his head. "No. I won't leave, but I can't go back to the way it was before."

"Why?" she pressed, needing something, some kind of affirmation out of him.

"Because it'll never be enough,"'he admitted. "Especially now."

She swallowed, almost gulping a little, and asked, "So this... this wasn't a thing that just... happened, and now that it has, you'll just... move on? You care about me?"

"You _know_ I care about you," he half-whispered, a quiet fierceness in his tone.

She breathed a sigh of relief, closing her eyes and leaning her head forward as her anxiety dissipated. His hand in her hair guided her into a warmer embrace, her breath on his neck as she made peace inside and let go of her intrinsic doubts.

Then, after a few quiet, content moments had passed, she lifted her head and looked him in the eye as she said, "It'll take time, and I don't know how exactly I'm gonna do it, but... I can't live like this, with him, anymore. I can't, and after last night... I just can't. But I don't want to leave this place either. It's home and I love everything about it except _him_."

"Then we'll figure it out," he replied. "You're not alone anymore. There's a way out for you. We'll find it."

She could have dissolved into tears at those words, and she very nearly did. This was exactly what she had been waiting so long for, the kind of support she had never had, and it had come from a most welcome, if entirely unexpected source. And she wouldn't change a thing.

"You sure?" she asked, letting one last doubt float to the surface.

He smiled and touched her face, reducing the doubt to a pile of ash, forgotten and gone. "I told you I'm not going anywhere." She smiled contentedly, just as he added, "But... there's something we need to do first."

"What's that?" she asked, though she had an idea of what might come next.

He grinned faintly and answered by kissing her, softly at first and then more insistent as his fingers threaded into her hair and hers pressed against his chest. She breathlessly kissed him back, feeling herself get caught up all over again, the butterflies and jolts even more powerful today, now that she knew that he wasn't leaving. Suddenly, everything seemed a lot less unsure and a whole lot more hopeful. She would find out soon if that hope was justified or doomed, but until then, she enjoyed what she had while it was hers.

**A/N 2: So first let me thank those of you who read this monster of a story and made it all the way through - I love you lol. Secondly, to those reading this after having read this week's update to Life After Death, yes, this story is not as graphic as what I described Bucky as reading (and a few of the quotes I wrote him as reading there do not appear here), and I do apologize for the slight inconsistency there, but since Summer does not theoretically have my same issues with writing smut... I had to make up for that lol. So, just imagine what Bucky read as this, only without the skimming of details once things got really started and instead, all of it in painstaking detail that caused his... erm... reactions lol. I did write about 5,000 words here of almost-smut and did my best to achieve the same sort of effect that a full-sex scene would have had, but you'll have to let me know in the reviews how well that worked *fingers crossed*. In any case, as one last note here, I do plan on writing a second part to this and finishing it up because I have MANY ideas for it, and since I left it here quite unresolved, I think it definitely needs a conclusion. So, if you want to read what happens next, put this story on alert, and I would imagine that in the next couple of months, I'll have the next part up. I enjoyed writing this so much and love this little random AU lol, so I will definitely finish it :D**

**Thank you all again so much for reading! :D **


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Eep! And now for the second, concluding part of this story, at least the conclusion of what I'm gonna write of it lol. There is plenty of room for more and it could turn into its own giant story, which is what I was going for, since this is supposed to be Summer's story and hers needs to be longer than two really big chapters lol. But anyway, thank you to everyone who reviewed the first part, and I hope you all like this part as well :D I'll put a trigger warning here for some talk and threats of rape and talk of miscarriage, just in case, because I don't want to accidentally trigger anybody, but there's nothing graphic ahead, of course. And a HUGE thank you to midnightwings96 for helping a ton with this story and easing my mind when I was nitpicking the crap out of it lol. Let me know what you guys think and thanks for reading! :D**

The sun was scorching on a late Friday morning, a day which Summer had been dreading and pretending would not come for a week. It was here now, and as the moments creeped closer to the noon hour, so also crept reality in the form of her husband's imminent return to the farm. He would be home in a matter of minutes.

She was in her safe place, the place she went to escape the world - her garden. The wide-brimmed hat that she wore blocked the sun's rays from her eyes, enabling her to occasionally glance over at a certain hired hand who was carrying large boards from a dismantled shed to a new one. Despite the heaviness of the day and the dread of having to once again face daily life with Marshall after more than a month without him, there was no stopping the butterflies in her belly nor the smile that would cross her face when their eyes would meet. He'd flash her a grin and she would bite her lip before looking away, almost forgetting entirely about why this day was automatically a terrible one.

Suffice it to say, the last week had been the best of her life. And he reminded her of that with every look and every smile he sent her way.

The barn had become their unofficial "place", the spot where they would steal kisses in during the day and, at night, steal far more. Her first night with him there had been a mere taste of what he could give her and make her feel, just a glimmer of what was yet to come. And that night had sated neither of them. On the contrary, it only stoked the flames between them to a growing roar, and neither of them were interested in putting it out.

But for now, she shoved those thoughts away and focused on her flowers. They kept her somewhat calm until she heard the crunch of tires coming down the gravel driveway, up towards the house and away from her garden sanctuary. She peeked up towards the driveway and felt her stomach drop a little at the sight of Marshall's small black car, but rather than shrink from reality, she signed and stood up, then brushed off her knees and straightened her dress. She looked over at Bucky, whose expression had gone from playful to slightly dark after he too saw the car , and then she drew a breath and started walking towards the car.

The last time they had spoken over the phone, Marshall had called her useless and ranted about her apparently outrageous decision to use "his" money to replace a broken tractor. Now, he was exiting the car and then opening one of the backseat doors, and after closing it, had a giant bouquet of flowers in his hands.

She stopped in her tracks. He walked the rest of the way to her.

"I am so sorry, Summer," he said, not bothering to say hello or beat around the bush. She stared at the flower arrangement and then looked up at him once he was closer. "I was a jerk, I really was, and I have no excuse. Forgive me?"

He handed the flowers to her, and she took them slowly, having not expected this. Of course, it was completely in-character for him to act like a complete douchebag and then come groveling back to her, but she just hadn't thought he would even bother with the effort this time. "Uh... well, do you even remember the things you said?"

He nodded, looking down shamefully. "Yes, I do, and I'm sorry. I was just under a lot of stress and the trip was just exhausting and lasted way longer than I wanted it to."

Right. Stress was always his excuse. She sighed and looked down at the flowers, thinking it was hilarious that after all this time, he still didn't get that she wasn't a fan of tulips. She had a whole garden of flowers that she loved and yet he never bothered to figure out their names and buy _those_.

"Are you okay?" he asked with sudden concern.

She looked up at him and nodded. "Yeah. I'm fine. Thanks for the... tulips."

"You like tulips, right?"

She paused. "I... well..."

"Oh my God."

Her head snapped up at his words, automatically and irrationally thinking that he had somehow just figured out what, or more specially whom, she had been doing over the past week. But instead, he was staring at the land, and soon enough, a smile crossed his face.

"Everything looks great. Wow! The old shed's finally down. The fences are fixed. Did you move some of the pins?"

"Yeah. Well, _I_ didn't. The new guy did," she explained. He looked at her in surprise, and she said, "Yeah, he's good." _So good_. "He's rebuilt a bunch of the pins and fixed the roof on the barn. He's working on the new shed now." _Really good with his hands_. "He's been really helpful too because he speaks Spanish and helps me communicate with the other guys." _Very talented tongue_. "So you did a good job hiring him." _It's the one thing you ever did right_.

"Wow. Okay. That's good! I'm glad to hear it. Let's go have a look."

She nodded, he walked past her, and then she realized belatedly what he had actually said. Awkwardly holding the tulips still, she turned and followed him, hoping that this wouldn't be as awkward as she knew it would be.

Then again, the first rule of getting away with something was to not appear guilty, and that meant acting normal. Normal, for who she was with with Marshall, meant detached and neutral. And it _definitely_ meant no more gushing over the new guy, regardless of how much he deserved it.

She just hated the idea of having to "get away" with what she and Bucky were doing when her marriage was nothing more than a formality at this point. She also hated the sudden guilt that had manifested within the very moment Marshall had stepped out of the car. She had done well avoiding even the slightest trace of guilt, but now faced with the evidence that she was indeed legally quite married... the shame had officially arrived.

Trying to ignore these things, she followed Marshall down the driveway and into the farm that she loved and he pretended not to hate. He walked about, admiring all the things that Bucky had repaired and built over the last month, and she nodded and stayed mostly silent, now hyperaware of her every word and movement. They had made their way to the goats and Marshall was observing the new additions to the group when Bucky reappeared.

He had thrown on a glove and an unbuttoned plaid shirt, apparently not willing to have his metal arm on display around Marshall. He only glanced at the flowers Summer was still holding before looking up at Marshall and showcasing his acting skills.

Marshall shook his hand, greeted him, and began to _rave_. "Everything looks great. I'm impressed! Last time I had a trip that long I came back and everything was almost in shambles."

Summer stayed silent but felt her shame dissolve into much more familiar anger. _Yes, shambles, because I'm completely useless and it was my fault that a storm came and blew away half the damn farm_...

"Thank you, sir," Bucky nodded, all quiet politeness, just as before.

"Yeah... you know, since you speak English and all," Marshall chuckled, looking out over everything, "I think I should put you in charge. Especially now that I can see you know what you're doing."

Summer froze as quickly as Bucky did. He paused and quietly repeated, "In... charge?"

"Yeah. Like a foreman." Marshall turned to Summer and asked, "Don't you agree?"

"I... yeah," she nodded. He was certainly good enough for the job, though she felt bad for the others who had been there much longer and deserved the job and the raise that came with it. She'd always suspected that Marshall had a racially bigoted side, though, and this seemed like further evidence.

"Then it's settled. You're promoted," Marshall smiled.

Bucky looked dumbfounded and confused, but he still managed to reply, "... Okay. Wow. Thanks."

"You're welcome. Hey," Marshall said, "since you're going to be around for awhile and we'll be seeing a lot of each other, why don't you come to the house for dinner tonight?"

_Now_ Summer gave herself permission to panic.

She caught the split-second look that Bucky shot her before he shook his head and replied, "I wouldn't want to impose or..."

"You wouldn't be!" Marshall assured him. "Not at all. Besides, it'll give my wife here a reason to get in the kitchen, and she never turns one of those down."

She groaned inside of her head. _Yes_, she liked cooking but he didn't have to make it sound so caveman-like. But that wasn't even half as troublesome as the idea of sitting down and having to eat an actual meal sitting between her husband and her... well... _lover_, as Bucky was so fond of saying.

To his credit, Bucky really did try to get out of it. "Really, it's fine. I wouldn't want either of you to go through the trouble..."

"It's no trouble. I insist. Come on over at 7:30. I won't take no for an answer."

Her heart sunk, and Bucky had no choice but to nod and smile tightly. "All right."

"Good!" Marshall beamed. "I'll see you then." He turned and gestured to Summer and added, "Come with me, I've got some stuff to talk to you about."

"Okay," she nodded quietly as Marshall walked past her towards the house. Bucky's gaze met hers and she made a face of miserable, still panicked, dread, and he mouthed _I'm sorry_. She nodded, knowing there was nothing he could have done, and then she turned and headed back towards the house.

This was going to be the most awkward dinner of her life.

* * *

While stirring sauce in a pot later that day, Summer used her free hand to text Bucky and try a few last ditch efforts to escape her doom.

_I could burn the food on purpose. Whoops. No dinner_.

His reply came quickly. _No. We just need to get it over with_.

She groaned. _But I could suddenly come down with a very contagious germ. Cough cough_.

_You need to act normal. Like I'm just one of the other guys and we haven't been tearing the barn apart every night_.

She rolled her eyes. He wasn't exactly helping matters by reminding her of that. She was blushing already and he wasn't even there yet. _How am I supposed to do that? I'm the world's worst liar_.

_I know. I'm sorry. I tried to say no_.

She sighed. _And I greatly appreciate that. I hate how he just forced the issue_.

A few minutes passed by before her phone buzzed again. _It'll be all right. I'll be on my best behavior. You should be fine so long as you can keep from blushing every time you look at me_.

She blew out a long breath and suppressed a groan, quickly typing back, _Fat chance_.

Another few moments passed, and he replied, _Be good and I'll reward you later_.

She dropped the large spoon in her hand, face flaring up as she aggressively typed back, _Okay, so not helping. That is the opposite of helping_.

_Sorry. Couldn't resist_.

She sighed and set her phone down, but not after deleting all of the texts. This secrecy was already getting to her, keeping that sense of guilt lingering in her head, and she wasn't even a full day into Marshall's return. If the last week had been a dream come true, pretending what life could be like with a good man who knew how to treat her and valued her as a person, then this was cold, hard reality coming back to punch her in the face.

Estranged, separated, only married on paper - it was all true, but so was the sneaking around and the deception of what was happening. And this damn dinner would likely prove to be exhibit A.

* * *

At 7:20, with the table set and dinner ready, Summer was busy uncorking a bottle of wine she was going to need to get through the meal when Marshall walked into the dining room, looked at her jeans and t-shirt, and made a face.

"Is _that_ what you're wearing?"

She looked up from the wine bottle and raised an eyebrow. "... Yeah?" When he continued to make the face of distaste, she said, "It's not exactly a dinner party."

"No, but he's our employee. You have to pay attention to the kind of impressions you make on employees."

_Oh, I think I've made a pretty big impression on him_. "I don't think he really cares. I mean, I've been working with him for over a month."

Marshall nodded and sighed. "Can you just put something better on?"

She bit her tongue and pulled the cork free, then tossed it down on the table and muttered, "Fine."

It made sense, she thought as she half-stomped to her room to change. Marshall was all about appearances, regardless of what their lives were actually like, and he always wanted to project a certain image of them. That meant her having to dress up even for just a simple dinner with a single farmhand. Well, foreman, as of a few hours ago.

Just to spite him a little, she put on a dress that Bucky had mentioned his affection for a few days ago. It was dark blue and moderately short, and it was as dressy as she was willing to get for this dinner. The last time she had worn it was five days ago, and it had survived being half clawed off as Bucky had shoved her against the wall of the barn and had his way with her.

When she got back downstairs, the clock hit 7:30 and there was a soft knock at the front door. Marshall immediately looked at her, apparently expecting her to play the hostess and go let him in, and rather than snap at his expectant expression, she bit her tongue again and went to the door.

She opened it to find Bucky dressed better than she had ever seen thus far, though still casual, in dark jeans and a black button down shirt. He even fixed his hair, as opposed to its usual state of work-induced disarray.

But she couldn't stand there and drool over him like she wanted to. And she could tell by the lightning-fast way his eyes swept over her that he was facing the same dilemma.

"Hi. Come on in," she said lightly, voice coming out a little higher pitched than she intended. If Bucky had ever doubted that this was her first time hiding an affair, he was definitely going to be convinced by the bumbling she feared was yet to come.

He thanked her quietly and walked inside, and as she closed the door after him, Marshall greeted their guest in his usual almost too-friendly way. He was a salesman in every sense of the word, and he never turned it off.

When the initial hellos and small talk had thankfully subsided, Summer led them into the dining room and then looked with dismay at the small table. No matter where she sat, she was going to be in the middle of them. Maybe it was just fitting.

Marshall went to one end and Bucky went to the other. She sat in the middle and wasted no time in picking up the bottle of wine and asking cheerfully, "Wine?"

"Yes, please," Bucky replied, the picture of quiet politeness. She filled his glass and fought the urge to skip hers and just drink straight from the bottle, trying not to look at him but at the same time trying to look at him enough so that it didn't appear that she was trying not to look at him.

She hadn't even picked up her fork yet and her stomach was already in knots.

"I'm glad we're doing this," Marshall said happily, waving off her offer of wine. Instead, he started piling his plate with food as he added, "And I have to say, sweetie, I missed your cooking."

_Sweetie_. She stared at Marshall for a moment, at a loss for why he would use a term of endearment for her now when he hadn't for roughly three years.

He appeared not to notice, asking Bucky instead, "Have you tried her cooking yet?"

"Couple times," Bucky replied, briefly looking her way. "When she cooked for all of us."

"She's generous like that," Marshall nodded, which was code for _I wouldn't spend a dime to feed you guys but she's dumb enough to_. "So, Bucky, tell us about yourself."

Summer nearly panicked on Bucky's behalf. They had been friends for awhile and had talked about everything under the sun except for his life story, because he always gave the distinct impression that he didn't want to talk about it, and she was fine with that.

"There's not much to tell," he shrugged, taking a bite while she took a healthy sip of wine.

"I'm sure that's not true," Marshall replied. "Where'd you learn to be so handy?"

Bucky paused before answering, "I didn't have much growing up. Knowing how to build things and fix stuff helped."

Marshall nodded. "Okay, makes sense. Where did you grow up?"

"Brooklyn."

"Brooklyn? Kinda rough these days," Marshall observed.

Bucky shrugged a little. "It's kinda rough everywhere."

"Well, can't argue that, I guess," Marshall nodded. "So, Army, right?"

Bucky nodded, and Summer kept drinking, wishing Marshall would just leave him alone.

"How did that work out?"

"Well, I got out," Bucky said a bit dryly. "It doesn't really make for good... dinner conversation."

"Gotcha," Marshall nodded. "Yeah, one of my guys at the dealership is a vet too." Then he quickly explained, "I own a car dealership."

"Oh," Bucky said, and Summer chewed a mouthful of food somewhat harder than necessary to keep from smiling. Bucky already knew Marshall owned a car dealership, of course. He knew more than he didn't know, but he was good at playing dumb.

"Yeah. That's why I was gone for so long. Big conference, lots of meetings."

_You are so full of crap_. Summer smiled pleasantly rather than voice the sentiment in her head.

"You got family here?"

Bucky shook his head. "Nah."

"What brought you down here from Brooklyn?"

He paused. "Fresh start, I guess."

Marshall nodded. "Yeah. We used to live in the city too, back when we were first married. Coming here was like a fresh start for us, too."

Summer almost choked on another mouthful of wine. He merely glanced at her and then continued on.

"Summer here, I never thought I'd convince her to move out here permanently. Real city girl through and through, always had a Starbucks cup in her hand," he smiled. "But when I inherited the place we spent a weekend out here and it was actually pretty romantic. Didn't take much convincing after that."

Beyond the obvious discomfort of the situation, Summer could not believe the revisionist history that she was hearing. She had been the one to push for moving to the place, not him. And if having routine, underwhelming sex that she hadn't really wanted to have right before he passed out snoring counted as romantic, then, well... maybe he needed to read more romance novels or something.

She glanced at Bucky when Marshall looked down at his plate, and he met her eyes for all of a second before taking another drink of his own wine.

Uncomfortable wasn't nearly strong enough of a word for how she felt, and they still had half the dinner to go.

She was surprised when she heard Bucky ask a question of his own. "How did you two meet?"

At first she wondered what the hell he was doing, especially since he already knew that story. Then she realized he was probably curious to see how different Marshall's version would be.

"Actually, that's a funny story," he grinned. "She came in to the dealership to buy her first car. I was just a sales associate back then. I sold her a '06 Honda, and we really clicked, you know. I called her to follow up after a few weeks, took a chance and asked her out, and the rest is history."

He left out the fact that she had actually initially turned him down because she found him too eager and mildly creepy. But then, going on bad advice from friends who had just wanted her to get out and date somebody - she was 18 and single, after all - she relented.

"I take it you haven't found the right girl yet, since if you were, you wouldn't be living here with us," Marshall said.

Bucky didn't miss a beat, shrugging slightly and replying, "I don't know. I might have."

"Really? Does she live in town?"

Bucky shook his head. "Nobody you know."

He then picked up his glass of wine again, looking at Summer long enough for the meaning of his words to sink in. Once it did, she had to look down and take a breath.

It was incredibly true, however. Marshall didn't have a clue about who Bucky was talking about. He _didn't_ know her, though she had his last name.

"Well, best advice I can give is not to take her for granted. Gotta treat 'em well or else they'll find someone who will."

She actually did choke this time, on a piece of broccoli.

"Yeah," Bucky agreed as Summer recovered and finished her wine. "Yeah, I think you're right."

Then Marshall reached beneath the table and conspicuously placed his hand on Summer's knee. They both missed the almost imperceptibly harder grip Bucky suddenly had on his fork as his acting skills were put to the test.

"Good thing we don't have to worry about that, right honey?" Marshall smiled at her.

"... Yeah," she said dully. For a moment she wondered if the man actually knew and was doing this on purpose, but the truth was that he really was just that delusional.

He gave her knee a squeeze and the let go. She breathed a sigh of relief, resolving to stab his hand with her fork if he tried to pull that again. He never acted like this when they were alone, _never_. It was all for show, and it made the sudden and unwanted signs of affection even worse.

"Well, in any case," Marshall sighed, "I'm glad you're here helping us. You've done a really great job with the place in just, what, barely more than a month? And now that I'm back, we can really get it into shape."

Bucky then said in the most polite, respectful way possible, "Yeah. But your wife did a very good job running things while you were gone. Most of what I did was under her direction. So most of the credit should go to her."

Marshall seemed flabbergasted by this, at a loss, even. Summer didn't notice, because she was smiling at Bucky in what she hoped was a purely professional way. "Thanks, but you did all the hard work."

Bucky shrugged, and Marshall continued to flounder for words. Summer turned back to her second glass of wine, sipping it and finally starting to feel the warmth take the edge off of her anxiety.

"Well, great!" Marshall finally said. "Glad the farm was in good hands, then."

The rest of the dinner passed by without incident, no more unwanted touches and mostly harmless talk. Summer offered dessert but neither man seemed to want it, and frankly neither did she, and the lack of it helped speed along Bucky's departure.

When the time came, she and Marshall walked him to the door, and she stood there in polite silence as Marshall bade him goodnight. Bucky thanked them for the dinner - specifically, and respectfully complimenting her cooking - and when she opened her mouth to reply, Marshall's arm was suddenly around her waist.

She only paused for half a second. "Thank you. I'm glad you liked it."

Bucky nodded, and she greatly admired his self-control and the fact that he wasn't glaring at Marshall - even though she could tell that under the surface, he probably wanted to beat the other man's face in.

"We'll have to do it again sometime," Marshall said, smiling obliviously. "Have a good night."

"You too. Thanks again," Bucky said before ducking out the door, one last very subtle glance passing between him and Summer before the door closed.

She silently let out the breath she had been holding all night.

"Well, he's nice," Marshall observed. "But why do you think he kept that glove on his hand the whole time?"

She shrugged. "No idea."

Relieved now that it was finally over, she let her shoulders slump and headed for the sink. Marshall was no help with dishes, so she had a date with the dishwasher for the next half hour or so.

As soon as she had walked to the sink and flipped on the water, she felt a hand on her back and flinched. She looked back at Marshall, whose face resembled that of a puppy as he said, "I'm still really sorry. You never said if you forgive me or not."

She knocked his hand away and replied, "Because I don't forgive you yet. And cut out the touching. I don't care if you want us to look perfect to the world. I don't like it and you know that so leave me the hell alone."

He held up his hands in surrender. "Fine. Fine. God forbid I touch my wife."

He then stalked off, up the stairs and towards his separate room. She sighed, then noticed her phone lighting up on the counter nearby.

She picked it up and found a new text from Bucky. _Barn. As soon as he's asleep_.

Dread and excitement filled her, leaving her unsure as to what she felt exactly. All she knew was that her week long fantasy was over, and as much as she wanted to, there was no going back. She had to deal with reality, and she couldn't pretend that Marshall didn't exist anymore.

She also had to sharpen up her sneaking out skills to make sure that Marshall didn't notice her leaving later for her rendezvous in the barn.

* * *

It was nearly midnight by the time Summer made it out to the barn. Marshall was in his bed snoring heavily, and she had changed from her dress to her least embarrassing pajamas - which were, unfortunately, Hello Kitty ones. Then she threw on a hoodie though she wasn't even sure why - maybe because all illicit activities seemed to involve at least one person in a hoodie? - and quietly tiptoed out of the house.

Across the property, the barn door was slightly open when she got there. She pushed it open and found it lit by the single bulb hanging, but seemingly empty.

"... Bucky?"

As soon as the word left her lips, two hands reached out from behind her, one flesh and one metal, and they spun her around and brought her crashing into two strong arms. She yelped in surprise but quickly fell silent as Bucky's lips descended upon hers with a fury, blanking out her mind and leaving her clinging to him like he was her only anchor to the world.

He spun her again, placing her back to the barn door and shutting it. He broke away only for a moment, and she drew in a heavy breath as her eyes took in his hungry, passionate, maybe even angry appearance. Then he was kissing her again, harder than before, and she moaned as she pulled him closer and opened her mouth to let him plunder it.

His hands were at her hips, pulling them against his the next time he broke away, panting with his forehead against hers, "I wanted to kill him."

Then he lifted her up, her legs wrapping around his hips and his lips now at her neck, and she held on with a handful of his hair in her hand as she replied, "I could tell. I'm sorry, I didn't think he'd..." she trailed off when she felt him sucking hotly on the side of her neck, and she tugged urgently at his hair. "Don't leave marks! You _really_ can't leave them now!"

He groaned, almost miserably, lifting his head and cradling hers with one hand. "I _need_ to, Summer."

She gulped, almost able to _feel_ the possessiveness roll off of him in a heated wave from his skin to hers. It was a stark change from how this had all began and how he had been every night thus far, and the intensity in his eyes shocked her a little.

She knew he felt _something_ for her. She knew he craved her, desired her, valued her for who she was and who she wanted to be. She knew their connection was based in friendship and deepened in something more. But she didn't know that what he felt ran as deeply as his current actions seemed to suggest. And it was as terrifying as it was exhilarating.

"I'm sorry," she said again, unsure of what to say or do. "He knows I don't want him touching me. I chewed him out for it after you left."

He kissed her again, made her head spin with the almost sloppy intensity of it, and then pulled away to plead, "Tell me you won't let him touch you."

She shook her head. "I won't."

"Promise me."

His left hand, the metal one, tightened its grip on her hip while his hand on her face and in her hair remained incredibly gentle. She expected to find bruises tomorrow, but for now she replied softly, "I promise you, Bucky."

Then he kissed her again, moaning helplessly into her mouth, and her insides were a mess of flipping and melting as he lifted her again and, this time, moved them to the floor on top of a soft pile of hay.

Impatiently yanking at her clothes from his place on top of her, he reluctantly tore his lips away from hers to unzip her unnecessary hoodie, and after he tore that from her body, he paused at the pajama tank that laid beneath it.

She suspected that she _should_ feel embarrassed to be seen by her disgustingly attractive lover in a black tank top with a pink heart in the middle with a big Hello Kitty face on it, not to mention the pants which he _just_ _now_ noticed were covered in tons of little tiny Hello Kitties. But she wasn't embarrassed, and the little amused grin that crossed his lips made sure of that. It was the sole lighthearted moment before he began quickly and roughly removing the clothes from her body. She sat up and did the same for him, frantically undoing the buttons of his shirt and only just getting his belt undone before he pushed her back down and resumed his ravaging kisses. He took her hands and stretched her arms up and over her head so that they laid in the hay, and his left hand held her wrists in a gentle grip as he claimed her for his own.

Normally, he took his time in working her up and making her all but beg for more. She was also used to him flipping her into different positions or her doing the same to him, all of it exploratory and fun and at the same time overwhelming, but this time, he had a different purpose. He covered every inch of her body with his, never once relinquished control to her, _took_ her mercilessly but skillfully and somehow perfectly, like he knew what they both needed that might and had no choice but to give in.

He was wordless, all gasps and moans that made her very bones shudder with pleasure, at least until the very end. He slowed down suddenly, leaving her to whimper in confusion and look up into his eyes. The blue left in them was as stormy as the emotions within them as he half-whispered, half-growled, "Tell me you're mine."

Her voice came out as a shaky moan. "I'm yours."

"I mean it," he said, brows drawing together in an almost heartbreaking way as he searched her eyes.

"So do I," she assured him quietly, fingers tracing the lines of cheekbone down to his jaw, trying to comfort him from whatever was causing this. It suddenly struck her how little she truly knew about him, how clueless she was as to what past hurts or wounds could be behind this.

He reached up and took her hand from his face, entwined his fingers with hers, then lowered their hands down to the hay next to her head as he began to speed up again. She watched his eyes roll shut and mouth drop open in a low, almost broken moan, and then he buried his face in her neck as they raced each other to the end.

For a long time after, there was nothing but silence, save for the sound of their heavy breaths. He stayed collapsed on top of her, their hands still joined, his breath tickling her neck and heart competing with hers for whose could beat the fastest. She didn't want to move, content to lay there under his weight and just fall asleep, but such things weren't possible anymore.

Eventually he kissed her neck softly, then shifted his weight off of her and rolled to her side. She quickly followed him, curling up to his side and laying her head on his chest, craning her neck slightly to look up at him.

He was staring at the ceiling, looking tired and... troubled.

"You okay?" she asked softly.

He exhaled slowly, looking down at her and replying, "I... yeah. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. That was amazing."

He half-grinned for all of a second before it disappeared under his still-faraway stare. Fingertips playing idly over his chest, she added, "You can tell me what's bothering you."

He closed his eyes for a moment, staring again at the ceiling as he tried to form words. Eventually, he muttered, "I know we haven't known each other long. If that scared you, I didn't mean for it to. I just..." He trailed off, sadness and something even more hollow flashing through his eyes. "I'm used to losing."

At first, hearing the way that he said that, she thought he was going to add something to that sentence. Like he was used to losing something specific. Instead, it seemed that he simply was truly used to _losing_.

"You didn't scare me," she assured him. "Not at all. I just wondered what... made you... feel that way."

He was silent for a long moment. Metal fingers were trailing through her hair when he spoke again. "I hate the thought of him in that house with you. The way that he talks about you and treats you, touches you..."

"He only touched me for show," she replied. "He doesn't do those things when it's just us. All he cares about are appearances."

"He's an ass," Bucky grumbled.

"He is," she agreed. "And I hate it too."

She almost - almost - admitted her feelings of guilt to him in that moment. It would have been incredibly easy and she felt more than safe enough to be vulnerable like that with him. Instead, however, she held the feelings inside, not wanting to burden him with her silly, self-created problems.

"Do you regret this?"

The question caught her off guard. She looked up to find uncertainty on Bucky's face.

She didn't hesitate with her answer. "No. I don't. The only thing I regret is marrying him." She reached up and touched his face, thumb running over the dimple on his chin as she added, "I think you're the one thing I've gotten right."

He searched her eyes then, looking for signs of doubt or insincerity. When he found none, he leaned in and kissed her lazily. He took her deeper within his arms, and she laid there and didn't say another word, kissing him back like they had all the time in the world. They didn't, though, and all too soon, they both had to get dressed and go their separate ways for the night.

The walk back to the house didn't exactly feel like a walk of shame, but it didn't feel particularly honorable either. She knew that she was stuck in a gray area of life, and those were much harder to understand than simple black and white ones.

She slipped inside unnoticed and quietly made her way to bed, not surprised when the mattress somehow didn't feel as comfortable or safe as the floor of the barn.

* * *

After that first day, things fell into a bit of a new routine. Marshall worked five or six days a week at the dealership, so he wasn't around much during the day. At night, he would come home and have dinner, and Summer would do her best to keep things friendly or at least cordial while also keeping him at arm's length until they both went to bed. It was easy this way, and her initial guilt and anxiety calmed some as time went on.

She didn't sneak out at night anymore. Instead, when he was taking a break or had an hour to himself during the daylight hours, Bucky would come over and escape the heat, taking refuge in her home and it's air conditioning. She would feed him, they would talk like they used to do out on the porch while Marshall had been gone, and then they would usually end up in her bed or in her shower, depending on the day. Sometimes she'd find herself on top of the table or on the couch, and what was adventurous to her seemed to be almost routine to him. He had clearly had a much more satisfying life so far than she had, at least when it came to _that, _but she was grateful for it.

Then, when night came and she was in her bed alone, her phone would light up with texts that she would always remember to delete before she fell asleep. She would always fall asleep before he did, her phone still in her hand, always the first to stop texting. She didn't know that it was because he barely slept when he was alone.

Then, on the one or two days a week when Marshall was home, the routine would time out and Summer would watch slightly nervously as he would traipse around the farm, playing boss. He was still a jerk to the other workers, but he acted like Bucky was the best thing that ever happened to the farm and would drag him around like they were new best friends. Summer had no idea how to feel about it. She had expected the opposite to happen and had been unprepared for this.

She kept to herself and avoided them on those days, for the most part. She'd check up on the animals and take care of her flowers, and when Marshall and Bucky would pass by in mid-conversation, she'd strain her ears to hear what they were talking about.

She heard nothing particularly interesting until about three weeks following Marshall's return. The temperatures were starting to cool now that the tail end of the summer season had arrived, so she wasn't slowly baking as she pruned one of her rose bushes. She was, however, carefully listening to a conversation taking place behind her garden.

There were trees between her and the two men, blocking either from being able to see her and thus know she was even there as she eavesdropped.

"... And I said no, no, I don't run that kind of farm," Marshall laughed. "Although I'm not gonna lie, I bet I'd make a much bigger profit if I _did_ run a marijuana farm."

She rolled her eyes, then heard Bucky reply, "Maybe, but I bet your wife wouldn't be very happy with that."

"Probably not," Marshall agreed.

"This place has always reminded me of one of those farms on old TV shows, real family-type place."

"Yeah," Marshall said, "it's always been that way. I did spend a lot of my childhood here. I was hoping my future kids would too."

Frowning at that sentence, Summer thought about ignoring the rest of the conversation but continued to listen anyway.

Bucky's next question surprised her. "You guys want kids, or..."

They started to walk away then, and she got up and started quietly following them out of sight to hear how that question got answered.

"We did," Marshall said. "We tried. But it didn't work out. I don't think she can carry babies."

She stopped in her tracks then, a sudden chill running down the center of her chest at his words. After all this time, hearing him say that was like opening an old wound and pouring salt directly into it.

"After that, she didn't want to try anymore."

"Oh," Bucky replied. "I'm sorry. She would have been a good mother."

His kind words didn't lessen the sting of tears suddenly in her eyes. Not wanting to hear anymore, she turned and threw off her gloves and left them in her garden as she headed for the house. Once there, she made a beeline for her room and only once she was safely behind her closed door did she let the tears finally fall.

She had sworn the last time he'd made her cry had been the last, that he'd never get to her again. But this... _this_ was beyond her control, and far beyond her ability to turn off her feelings. Some wounds never healed, and some never stopped hurting. And Marshall, having been the only one there with her through the loss of their baby, should have _known_ that. He might not have known that she was listening, but some things shouldn't be said at all, to anyone, especially when they weren't true.

She sat down on her bed, against the pillows at the top of it, and let herself cry out a mixture of old sadness and new anger. It took awhile, but when the tears ran dry and she could feel herself calm down some, she sniffed back the last of the tears and reached for a photo album that she kept in the drawer next to her bed.

She had spent no more than five minutes staring sadly at a particular picture when she heard a gentle knock at the door.

"Go away," she immediately yelled, not wanting to see Marshall's face right now.

"It's not him," a quiet voice said from the other side, just before the door slowly opened. She looked up in shock to see Bucky standing there.

"What are you doing in here?" she whisper-yelled, wondering how the hell he had the nerve to actually show up to her room while Marshall was around.

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. "He left," Bucky explained, eyes full of concern as he looked her over. "Crisis at the car dealership or... something." Then he paused and asked quietly, "Are you okay?"

She shook her head, closing the photo album as he walked to the bed. "Yeah. I'll be fine. I really should be used to it by now."

"You shouldn't have to be," he said, climbing in bed to sit beside her. "I didn't know you were listening until I saw you start heading for the house."

She sighed and wiped her eyes with her hands. "He's always blamed me. I knew that, but then to hear him say that I _can't_ have babies, which isn't even true..."

His arm was around her then, pulling her closer to his side. "He's an idiot."

"I know," she said, laying her head on his shoulder. "But it doesn't make it hurt any less."

He nodded, letting her be hurt instead of trying to persuade her otherwise. It was refreshing to not be told how to feel and to simply be allowed to feel whatever it was that she needed to.

After a few moments had passed, Bucky gestured to the photo album still in her lap and asked, "Do I get to see embarrassing pictures of you from high school now?"

She chuckled and shook her head. "No. That's actually my wedding album. I don't know if you want to see those pictures."

"Only if you don't mind," he replied.

"I don't," she said, opening the book to the first page and starting from the beginning.

Her wedding seven years ago had been a small affair, mostly because it had happened quickly and she hadn't had much family of her own to attend, just a few friends and then Marshall's family. She had been younger and incredibly naive, but she looked like the picture of happiness in all of the photos. They even looked good together in them - after all, Marshall wasn't a hideous man. He was average from a physical standpoint. It was the ugliness within that made her recoil from him now.

"You looked beautiful," Bucky said quietly, once they got to a few of the pictures that were of her by herself.

"Yeah, I looked pretty good that day," she agreed. "I thought I was just the luckiest girl. I know he's a dick now but he really did act perfect for a long time. Explains my raging trust issues."

"I can understand that," he said quietly.

They looked through a few more pictures, and then when Bucky caught sight of a small picture with white edges trying to fall out from between two of the latter pages, he pointed to it and said, "What's that?"

She swallowed and for a moment considered just pushing it back between the pages and saying that it was nothing, but it would have been a lie. And on top of that, she was really tired of pretending that it was nothing when really it was the single worst thing that she had ever experienced. She didn't like sharing it with anyone, but Bucky already knew about it and though she hadn't known him _that_ long and she _did_ have raging trust issues... she felt safe sharing this with him.

She pulled out the small, weathered picture and said, "This is the only ultrasound picture I ever got of my baby."

He carefully took the picture from her hand, and he thoughtfully looked it over as she stared at it and was silent for a long moment.

"That was at seven weeks," she explained. "That little dot right there," she pointed at a specific spot, "was its heartbeat. I lost it the next week."

He furrowed his brows, looking to her from the photo and asking, "Did they ever say why it happened?"

She shook her head. "No. But they said that half of first pregnancies end that way, so... it's pretty common. Usually 'chromosomal defects', or at least that's what they think. I could have tried again but... I was scared to death that I'd lose another baby, plus Marshall was such a jerk by then that I didn't really want to have his kids anymore."

Bucky nodded, looking back to the picture and staying quiet. Feeling a little better to have this off her chest, Summer said sadly, "I just really wanted to be a mother."

He took a breath, handing the picture back to her. Then he asked softly, "Your parents are gone, right?"

She nodded, a little confused at the seeming change of topic. Then he said, "But you're still a daughter, even though they're not around." She looked at him in lingering confusion, but he added, "What I'm saying is, just because your baby wasn't born, it doesn't mean you weren't its mother. You _are_ a mother."

While she had thought that she had all but cried herself out earlier, her eyes almost instantly filled with tears the moment the words left his lips. Nobody had ever said anything like that to her before, not even the kind nurses who had treated her when she had lost the baby. She had no idea how else to respond but to wrap her arms around him and hug him like he had just given her a precious gift.

He held her gently in his arms, not saying a word, just being there and letting his presence and comfort show that he cared. It was all she had ever asked of Marshall but far less than she had received, and it made her cry even more to think that maybe, she had finally found what she had been looking for in the wrong place for too long.

* * *

Something changed that day, and Summer knew what it was. It was a deeper level of trust on her part, and a mutual but unspoken understanding that whatever it was between them that they had started all those weeks ago, it was something truly substantial. They had known that from the beginning, but now it could no longer be ignored or downplayed in either of their minds. And neither of them were willing to even consider giving it up.

As a result, they started getting a bit sloppy and had two close calls with nearly getting caught together. The first time occurred because Summer had watched Bucky give her a very specific look before disappearing into the barn, in the middle of the afternoon, and she had looked around and determined that it was safe to follow him. Marshall was inside the house on a conference call that he'd just started, and those usually lasted at least an hour.

And so, they tempted fate, devouring one another against one of the walls of the barn. And when Marshall came wandering outside following the cancellation of his call, he headed straight for the barn to grab some supplies out of it, only to be stopped by one of the other hands, named Arturo.

"No, no, no," the young man said, standing in his way and gesturing somewhat wildly with his hands. He fumbled around with his poor English before eventually getting the message across that one of the other guys had fallen ill and was currently laying in the barn with a fever until he felt well enough to walk back to the building in which they lodged. Marshall grumbled about it but headed back to the house anyway. Later, when Arturo told Bucky about the incident, Bucky thanked him profusely and then comforted Summer when she wanted to die of embarrassment.

The next near-miss came a week later, when Summer forgot about Marshall's tendency to come home from work earlier than usual on Fridays. As the sun began to set outside, she headed up to her bedroom and set her sights on her shower, but not before texting Bucky an open invitation first.

She left her phone on her bed and took her time in undressing, giving Bucky time to accept if he wished. Five minutes passed before she stepped into the shower, closing the door behind her and getting under the soothing stream of hot water. Not two more minutes went by before she heard the door open, and she smiled to herself as arms slid around her waist and lips pressed against her shoulder.

"I thought you'd come," she said, melting against him and biting her lip as he kissed up her neck.

"I'll always come for you," he grinned, turning her face towards him so that he could kiss her lips and see the blush on her cheeks.

They took their time in the shower but only teased each other, neither in the mood for anything quick or fleeting, and she was desperate for more by the time he turned off the water and picked her up. He barely took even a moment to dry himself or her off at all, dripping everywhere as he carried her to her bed and dropped her on top of it. She giggled and he grinned, then groaned as he kissed her and picked up where he had left off.

He slowly kissed a trail down her body, driving her to the brink of begging with just the actions of his mouth on her breasts. By now she well knew that they were among his favorite parts of her, and he knew just what to do with them that would make her hips move and seek friction against him and her voice escape her control to start moaning.

Then, right when he had her where he wanted her, he slid down to where she needed him and finally ended the teasing. His mouth set to her with a passion, and all she could do was hold on to his hair and arch off of the bed, disjointed and ragged moans leaving her open mouth. The only thing better than what he could make her feel was how she could tell, beyond a doubt, how much he enjoyed it himself. He _loved_ pleasing her, relished her every moan and every quiver, and there was nothing she could do but happily succumb to him.

At least until she heard the faint slam of the front door downstairs. She froze and so did he, his head shooting up as he looked back at the door and she realized with horror that it was _Friday_.

"Crap!" She hissed, pushing him off of her and scrambling off of the bed for clothes. She grabbed his and threw them at him, and when he mouthed the words "calm down", she narrowed her eyes and screamed in a whisper, "Don't tell me to calm down! This is bad! You can't just jump out the window!"

He looked at her vaguely, quickly getting his clothes back on while she took a shortcut and just threw a bathrobe on that was luckily laying nearby. She then watched with ever-growing horror and disbelief as he looked towards her window and then walked calmly to it, unlocking it and then lifting it up.

She was at his side in a flash. "Bucky, don't even think about it. You'll hurt yourself, like you could _really_ hurt yourself -"

He interrupted her by kissing her, tongue sliding against hers in an unexpectedly deep kiss that shorted out her brain and almost made her forget that Marshall was probably heading up the staircase by now. She was suddenly all too aware of how Marshall's intrusion had left her teetering on a brink that she now wouldn't get to have, and to make matters so much worse, Bucky then broke the kiss and grinned maddeningly at her as he whispered, "See how good you taste?"

Her face suddenly the color of the tomatoes she grew, her mouth fell open and he merely grinned wider at her before not climbing out of the window but _leaping_ from it. She watched with her jaw on the floor when he tumbled like a ninja the minute he hit the ground, then smoothly propelled himself to his feet and looked up at her from the ground in smug amusement. She watched him then disappear into the trees, like he had never been there at all.

She would deal with his filthy mouth and questions of when and how he had learned to jump from buildings like that later. She had just barely gotten the window down and then turned just in time to deal with the knocking on her door.

Miffed that he had ruined a rather enjoyable moment, she fanned her face to get off the last traces of her blush as she walked to the door and threw it opened, immediately demanding of Marshall, "_What_?"

His eyebrows furrowed at her unexpected snapping, but then he shook it off and said, "Sorry to... bother you. Just wanted to let you know I brought dinner home."

"Oh. Okay. Thanks," she said, trying to soften her tone and get it together.

He nodded, looking past her into her room for a moment before saying, "And one other thing... I was talking to a guy I sold a car to awhile ago, and a friend of his just opened a new restaurant in town, and it's supposed to be pretty nice. He said he could help get us in for next Thursday."

"Next Thursday?"

"Yeah." He paused, then added, "Our anniversary?"

_Oh, crap_. "Right, right. Of course, yeah."

He nodded. "So... is that a yes, then?"

She didn't want to say yes, but in that moment she felt trapped and blurted out the first thing that popped into her head. "Okay, sure."

He smiled. "Awesome. You'll love it."

She smiled back weakly. "Yeah, I'm sure I will."

After he headed back down the stairs to get started on dinner, she closed the door and turned around with the intention of getting dressed. Instead, she face-planted into her bed and groaned, wondering why she allowed herself to get into these awkward, weird, miserable situations.

Next to her face, some minutes later, her phone buzzed, and she wearily picked it up to read a new text from Bucky. She was right to be slightly nervous about what it might say.

_Imagining your mouth instead of my hand just doesn't compare to the real thing. _

_Does help though. _

She groaned again, though it was more of a whimper this time, and she dropped the phone to the floor, her arm dangling off the bed as her pillow muffled her noise of despair. Her husband was oblivious, and her lover was trying to utterly _kill_ her.

How in the _world_ was all of this going to end?

* * *

The night before her anniversary "date", Bucky texted her to come and meet him in the barn. Unable to say no to him and not wanting to in the least, she waited until she was absolutely sure that Marshall was asleep in his room and headed out into the balmy night.

Bucky knew about the date and wasn't happy about it, but he also didn't seem to fault her for going along with it for the sake of peace. He did, however, spend that night in the barn mercilessly marking every inch of her flesh that would be covered by her clothes, and she half-wondered that if she played connect-the-dots with the marks, if it would reveal his name temporarily tattooed upon her.

He was also different that night, quieter than usual but intense, and she suspected that it was anger she was seeing in his eyes every time they would open and bore into hers. He took her not once but twice, nearly without pausing to take a breath in between, and she worried at just _what_ kind of turmoil within could cause that kind of stamina.

She found out the answer as they laid there afterwards, silent for a long time until he spoke first. And just as she suspected, he _was_ angry, but he still spoke in soft, easy tones.

"What are we doing?" he asked, staring up at the ceiling.

She peeked up from his shoulder, her previous relaxation falling away into anxiety as she furrowed her brows. "What do you mean?"

He paused, taking a moment to think and gather his words before he spoke again. "I _mean_... I know you hate him. He makes you miserable and you want him gone but then you... you go and agree to a date with him."

"I told you why I did that," she said quietly, dreading where this conversation was going.

"I know," he said, shifting down so that his face was nearly level with hers. "I _know_, but the way that you're handling this, he's gonna get false hope and nothing is ever gonna change. He'll never leave. He loves you, in his own twisted way -"

"No he doesn't," she insisted, briefly aghast that he'd even say that.

"Yes he does," Bucky argued softly. "It's not... real love, but he thinks it is and I know that from talking to him. He's never gonna let you go on his own. And every bone you throw him, he's gonna take it as a lot more than it actually is."

"What else am I supposed to do?" she asked. "I hate this too, but I can't leave yet. I've got a stash that I'm trying to build up for a lawyer but it's taking forever and..."

"We could leave," he interrupted, and the words caught her completely by surprise. "We could."

She stared at him in shock for a moment before her brain caught up. "Where would we go? How would we live? Your job is here and I have barely any money of my own. I haven't worked in years - I mean I _could _work, but it wouldn't be a good job and I wouldn't make much, and -"

"We'd figure it out," he shrugged, but she looked at him doubtfully.

"What if we didn't? Running away like that never even works in the movies, let alone in real life. And what about everybody here? He'd treat them even worse and I wouldn't be around to give them extra money when I can, and -"

"They're not your responsibility," he pointed out. "They're grown men."

"Yeah, but they're in a bad situation too. They don't _want_ to be here. You weren't here when I had to drive Manny to the ER with heat exhaustion because of how hard Marshall worked him one day last year."

Bucky paused but replied, "Thinking about yourself for once in your life wouldn't make you a bad person, Summer."

"No, but really think through what you're saying," she said. "It's not practical. And you would have to start over again somewhere, and find new work, and I don't want to do that to you just because of me and my stupid issues."

"So don't do it for you," he said. "Do it for me."

She paused, searching his eyes and feeling her heart sink a little at what she feared he was trying to say. "Please don't turn this into something where you make me choose between you and something else because that's _really_ not fair."

"None of this is fair," he replied. "It's not fair to me either."

She then watched with wide eyes and growing fear as he sat up, gently easing her out of his arms in the process as he went on. "I can barely stand this anymore. I can be patient and wait but I can't sit here and watch him with you. You don't know what it does to me."

She sat up, her mind racing immediately to the worst conclusion possible because the worst was what she had long learned to get used to. "What are you saying?"

He paused as he searched for words, looking down first and then, when he looked back to her, widening his eyes and asking quietly, "Why are you crying?"

She wasn't crying yet, but he apparently knew exactly what she looked like just before the tears were about to come. "Because," she blurted out, "I know what you're about to say and I'm such an _idiot_..."

Before she could completely lose it and start crying, his hand was on the side of her face and he said, "God, Summer, I'm not going anywhere, if that's what you're thinking."

Genuinely surprised because she really had thought the worst, she blinked and sniffed back the ridiculous tears. "... Really?"

"Yes," he sighed, looking at her sadly, like the fact that she had believed such a thing truly pained him.

She sighed and covered her face with her hand in embarrassment. "I'm sorry. You must think I'm crazy."

He shook his head. "Not crazy. Just... married to a man who's never treated you well a day in your life."

She laughed despite the lack of humor in his words. "Yeah. You're not wrong."

His fingers under her chin tipped her head up a little bit, and he said, "I'm _not_ going anywhere. I wouldn't leave you here. You should know that by now."

"... Trust issues?" she smiled weakly.

He frowned for a moment. "I know. But the thing is... this _is_ hard for me. I'm not good at sharing."

"You're not sharing," she said. "I don't even wear a ring. I don't touch him."

"But you live with him. You have his name. He feeds you, he clothes you," Bucky muttered. "And tomorrow you're gonna be drinking champagne with him celebrating your anniversary while I'm sitting here waiting for you to get back so I can have my one hour a day with you. Maybe get you to come out here so I can do _this_ to you," he gestured to the wide array of marks his mouth had left on her body, "and pretend that you're mine."

"You're not pretending," she shook her head. "I _am_ yours. I'm yours in every way that counts. I lo-"

She snapped her mouth shut in sudden awareness of what was about to fly out of it. The silence following her near-confession was louder than a if a hurricane had swept by and left nothing standing. The look of hope on his face followed by possibly hurt resignation when she didn't finish her sentence made her face flare up in sudden shame, but whatever she did, she couldn't finish the word. She just _couldn't_.

"I want to say it, Bucky," she said quietly, no use in pretending that the moment hadn't happened. "But I am _really_ scared to because we haven't been together that long, and I went too fast with _him_ too, and look how we turned out - I don't want the same thing to happen to us, or..."

"It's okay," he nodded, shushing her. "I understand."

"You do?"

He nodded again. "You don't have to say anything you're not ready to."

She breathed in relief, though she wished that she had just said it. That hopeful look on his face had just about been the death of her.

Then his hand slid down to hers, held it gently as his thumb ran over the back of her hand, and her eyes snapped up to his in shock when he spoke again.

"But I _do_ love you."

Her mouth fell open and she gaped, knowing she looked ridiculous and not caring. But the way that he was looking at her as he said those words - soft and caring and _real_ and, yes, even loving - it was too much and she suddenly felt like she might faint.

"I do," he said, pulling her closer, still holding on to her hand. He smiled to himself and, looking down at their hands, said, "I don't know when it started but I do know it was never just about sex or having you. And I know it hasn't been long, but I don't care."

Her heart felt like it might burst in her chest, and one part of her wanted to smile wide enough to potentially break her own face, while the other wanted to cry for all of this being _so damn perfect_ but so stuck within a terrible situation. She should have been shouting with joy from the rooftops, having this incredible man in love with her, but their love was trapped inside of the barn that they were sitting in.

It _had_ to change. He was right. It wasn't fair to him. It wasn't fair to her. It wasn't even fair to Marshall.

"How can you _know_?" she asked, the last of her doubts making themselves known.

He didn't answer right away. She watched a lot of emotions flicker across his face - sadness, fear, apprehension - but the softness had come back to his eyes by the time he replied to her. "Because for a long time, I felt nothing. Like you before, but a lot worse. I might as well have been dead. It took me a long time to start living again. Took me even longer to want to."

She listened carefully, committing every word to memory, because he had never opened up like this before. He turned her hand over and ran his thumb across her palm before looking up at her. "I came here to get away and forget everything."

"Did you?" she asked.

"No," he smiled faintly. "You helped me remember."

"Good things, though, right?" she asked, not sure how much more of this she could take before she would simply burst.

"Only good things," he replied just above a whisper before leaning in and kissing her softly.

She hugged him close to her and kissed him back, in shock at how the night had ended up, and incredibly grateful for it. She wondered how she had missed it all this time, the loving way that he touched her and looked at her - was she just really that unfamiliar with it that she simply hadn't known what to look for?

"One other thing you helped me remember," he said, kissing her cheek. "I'm a jealous bastard."

She chuckled, running her fingers through the ends of his hair above his neck. "I noticed. But I don't mind."

He kissed her again, then murmured, "You kind of look like you have chicken pox now."

She looked down and then burst out laughing for a moment. "Really dark chicken pox. Do your lips hurt after doing all of that?"

"A little," he admitted. "But I had to."

"I know," she said quietly, kissing him one more time before signing and resting her chin on his shoulder, closing her eyes as his hand rubbed down her back. "I need to tell him."

"Yeah," Bucky agreed.

"I don't know how."

"We'll figure it out," he assured her.

She hoped they would, because like him, she knew now that she couldn't live like this for much longer. It was time for a change, and time to be brave.

If only it wasn't easier said than done.

* * *

The next day, she dressed for her anniversary dinner on autopilot. Marshall had pulled out all the stops, even buying her a new dress for the occasion, and she couldn't even pretend that she didn't _really_ like the dress. He didn't know her taste in flowers or most anything else, but he did apparently know how she liked to dress.

The restaurant was in the heart of the bustling nearby town, and it was as nice as he had claimed it was. He bought the most expensive bottle of champagne on the menu, told her to order whatever she wanted, and all in all looked rather excited about the date.

He had no idea that she spent the entire meal agonizing internally over how to tell him that she had fallen in love with the farm hand that he'd promoted to foreman and considered to be a friend, and that they had been in a relationship for nearly four months now and were quite serious.

As horrible as he had been to her over the years, Summer immediately realized that she couldn't tell him during an anniversary dinner of all things. _He_ might have been mean, insensitive, and a whole slew of other things, but even now, despite how she was deceiving him on a daily basis, she still couldn't find in herself to be mean back and crush his hopes and their entire marriage over dinner.

She was almost disappointed in herself, but she couldn't muster up a single grain of truth throughout the hour they spent eating and chatting. He was trying to be charming again, acting a bit like he used to, before everything had gone to hell years ago, but it didn't work now like it had then. She knew all his tricks, everything he did to make people like him and trust him, and there was truly no going back. If Bucky hadn't existed or had found work somewhere else and she had never met him, it wouldn't have changed that fact.

So while she smiled and toasted eight years with her third glass of champagne, inside she was merely debating how and when to drop the bomb on him. Sitting there, in an expensive dress and eating a dinner worth more than what he paid the other hands in two weeks, it had never been more clear how little money mattered in the grand scheme of things. Maybe Bucky had been right about running away, because she decided that she would rather live on a prayer with him than spend another day in the comfort of Marshall's money, if it meant no longer living a blatant lie.

She'd lose the farm, and that would hurt. It was the one place that felt like home, the thing that had been a source of joy and comfort when nothing else had been. But what else could she do?

She was silent most of the way home, too lost in thought and preoccupied with appearing as if she was perfectly fine to talk or even be present. Marshall was fine with that, listening to a game on a sports talk radio station, and she merely counted the minutes until they were home and she could take refuge in her room.

And that was exactly what she did once the car pulled up on the familiar driveway. She thanked him politely for the dinner and then was inside and up the stairs before he had even locked the car. It really wasn't that out of character for her or beyond what he should expect from her at this point, so she didn't think twice about it.

But she should have, and she should have locked her door as well. Having done neither of those things, she kicked off her high heels and then unzipped the back of her dress, pulling it down and then jumping in surprise when the door opened behind her and her husband walked inside nonchalantly, holding the purse that she had forgotten in the car like moron.

"What the -" she squeaked in surprise, trying to pull the dress up despite the fact that he wasn't seeing anything he hadn't seen before.

"Sorry, but you left your purse, so I... what is all of _that_ on your skin?"

She froze. First came shock, then came horror, then denial as she zipped the dress back up and shrugged it off. "Nothing."

He looked at her in confusion. "That didn't look like nothing. It looked like..."

_The world's biggest smattering of jealousy induced hickeys_ were the words he was looking for, but she sure as hell wasn't going to supply them for him.

"It's nothing," she insisted, though she knew her face was on fire and her terrible lying skills were coming back to bite her. "Just hand me my purse."

She reached for it, but he jerked it back, and she realized what was happening. He was adding two and two in his head and very possibly getting four.

"... Who did that to you?" he asked quietly.

"... Nobody did anything to me," she tried to say convincingly.

"God, Summer, I'm not _that_ stupid," he said, wincing slightly. "Who was it?"

When she said nothing, suddenly completely unprepared for this conversation now that it was actually happening, Marshall decided to reach into her purse and grab her phone.

Her instant panicked response was the red flag he had been looking for. "Don't - dammit, just give me my phone!"

She tried to grab it, but he easily brushed her off and held the phone out of reach. She then watched helplessly as he found out the truth for himself, pulling up her texts with Bucky from that day that she hadn't gotten around to deleting yet.

They had talked about her date tonight, about when and how she would tell Marshall the truth, and how lucky she was that the dress he'd gotten her just so happened to cover the plethora of marks left by Bucky's mouth the night before. It was as damning as any evidence could be, and sharp, unavoidable, undeniable guilt pierced her heart at the look on Marshall's face as he read them.

It didn't matter that he technically deserved it after probably doing the same thing to her plenty of times over the years, not to mention all the other, deeper ways that he had hurt her through such trusty methods as verbal, emotional and even physical abuse. None of that mattered to her at that moment, because she was supposed to be better than this.

All the justifications and excuses in the world couldn't have done a damn thing to make her feel any better as he looked up at her in pure shock and dismay.

"How long?" he asked in a small voice.

She blinked, finding her voice. "Four months next week."

"He's only been here five months," he said a little breathlessly, dropping her purse and phone to the floor.

"I was going to tell you," she said quietly. "You saw that in the texts. I just didn't know how and..."

"I knew you hated me," he said, staring at the floor, face awash in confusion still. "I knew that but I never thought you'd..."

"... Like you _didn't_?" she asked carefully. "We haven't slept together in almost three years, Marshall. You can't tell me you haven't cheated since then."

He laughed, though it came out as more of a wheezing sound, and he replied, "Actually, no, I haven't, believe it or not. I did try once or twice. But I couldn't go through with it." Then he turned growing-colder eyes on her and said, "Obviously you didn't have that problem."

She wasn't sure if she believed him, but his last jab was what she focused on. "That is _not_ fair and you know it. We're separated. I haven't worn a ring in years, we don't kiss, we don't do anything - we're only married on paper."

"I thought that piece of paper mattered to you, though," he said. "It used to. I don't know who you are anymore."

"You've never known me," she shrugged. It was nothing but true.

He raised an eyebrow. "And he does?"

She closed her eyes briefly and swallowed. "Don't... just don't do this, okay? You found out. You know now. I didn't do this to hurt you. Can we just... talk it out and... figure something out or..."

He laughed. This time it was a derisive sound. "Right, right, talk it out. Because there's _so_ much to talk about now?"

She sighed. "Marshall..."

His hand suddenly slapped against the doorframe, and the sound made her jump a little. He shook his head and muttered, "Don't. Don't talk to me."

He then turned and stomped down the staircase. She walked to her doorframe and watched him make an angry beeline for the front door, and she quickly made her way down as well, wanting to make sure that he wasn't going to go find Bucky and try to start a fight that he had not a single hope in winning.

But she ended up watching him get into his car and peel out of the driveway instead. She sighed in relief, and only then did she realize how badly her legs were shaking.

As nerve wracking and horrific as that initial moment of discovery had been, and as nervous and unsure as she still was, there was something so distinctly _relieving_ about it being out and over and done with that she wondered why she hadn't done this months ago.

Willing her legs to steady themselves, she went back up the stairs and grabbed her phone from the floor. She sent a very badly misspelled text to Bucky - her fingers were also apparently shaking - and then sat down on the edge of her bed.

He was inside the house and in her room so fast she almost laughed. When his face popped up in the doorway, he said with alarm written on his face, "He knows?"

She nodded. "Yep."

He hurried to sit down at her side. "How?"

She told him the story, steadiness returning to her limbs now that it was over and she could talk it out and make sense of it all. He listened quietly, apologizing when she mentioned how the marks on her body had been the giveaway, and then, after they had sat in a silence for a moment, he asked the one question that was at the forefront on both of their minds.

"What now?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea. Hopefully he calms down and comes home and we can talk about how we're gonna get divorced. He was actually kinda calm the whole time, so... maybe this will all go better than I expected."

Bucky was quiet for a moment. "Okay, but I'm gonna be close tonight when he comes back. Just in case. I'll be out in the barn. I want you to call me if you think there's even the smallest chance that he'll hurt you."

She nodded. "Okay. I don't think it'll come to that, but..."

"I hope it doesn't. But I'll be here in case it does."

"Okay. Thank you," she smiled.

He cocked his head a little at her smile, then observed with a small one of his own, "You seem pretty... okay with all of this."

"I think I'm just relieved," she sighed. "I'm embarrassed and my guilt just went through the roof, but... keeping us a secret was killing me and I didn't even know it."

He nodded, covering one of her hands with his and replying, "Well, it's over now. Whatever happens next, you're not alone."

She smiled at him. "I know. Thank you."

He smiled back and gave her a gentle kiss, neither of them aware that the real storm was yet to come.

* * *

True to his word, Bucky stayed close to the house all night. Summer had decided to turn in for the night, though she doubted that she'd get any sleep, and Bucky took up watch outside of the barn. He didn't care what she said - the bastard had hit her once before, and that meant that he could damn well do it again, especially now that he knew about their relationship.

It was nearly midnight when he heard footsteps approached and looked up to find Arturo heading his way. The man sat down next to him, handed him a bottle of beer, and asked in his native Spanish, "Why are you watching the house?"

"Boss found out," Bucky replied, easily shifting to the other language. "Just making sure I'm close by in case he tries to hurt her when he comes back."

Arturo's eyes widened and he said, "He'll try to kill you."

Bucky chuckled, taking a drink from the bottle. "I'm not worried about that. But I assume that I'm fired."

"You are crazy," the man laughed. "Crazy! I told you from the beginning."

"You're the one who got us to dance," Bucky pointed out. "You said we reminded you of some movie and belonged together or something."

"Yes, _Titanic_," Arturo nodded, "where the guy _dies_ at the end."

Bucky shrugged. "I don't see any boats around here."

Arturo sighed, taking a long drink from his own bottle. "It's funny. He was the last to know. We all had bets going for how long you two could keep fooling him."

Bucky raised an eyebrow, having not known that _everybody_ knew. "Who won?"

"I did," Arturo grinned. "Everyone else gave him too much credit, thought he'd figure it out sooner."

"I tried to be subtle," Bucky muttered.

"You were about as subtle as an elephant in the middle of Times Square, my friend," Arturo shrugged. "Even Hector figured it out and he barely knows a goat from a sheep." Bucky chuckled, shaking his head at himself, and Arturo gave his shoulder a pat. "Don't feel bad. You tried. And we are all for you and her."

Bucky glanced at him in surprise. "Why?"

"I have been here three years," Arturo said. "She never smiled until you came here. But she's always been good to us. She cares. He never has."

Bucky nodded, then looked up when he saw headlights coming down the driveway. He braced himself, thinking that this was the _real_ moment of truth, and the moment where Marshall's real reaction would come out. He hoped for the best but expected the worst.

Setting his bottle down on the ground, he watched from afar as Marshall opened the car door and stumbled out of it, clutching a dark square-shaped bottle in his hand. He slammed the door shut, then half-slumped against it, taking a drink from the bottle, and then he straightened up and starting walking in the opposite direction of the house.

"He's drunk," Bucky said, stating the obvious. He stood up, watching carefully as the man wandered off, and then Bucky began to follow him without a second thought.

He stayed far enough behind that he wouldn't be noticed, and Arturo came with him. Marshall yelled at a few animals to shut up, stumbling a few more times, and Bucky considered it a miracle that the man had actually driven home in one piece.

But, he realized all too late where it was that Marshall was heading towards. Trying to remain hidden, he stood behind a tree and then watched Marshall step into Summer's garden. The bottle of whiskey in his hand was then emptied out all over the flowers that she spent every day tending to, and then before Bucky could do a thing to stop it, Marshall fumbled with a pack of matches in his pocket, lit one, and tossed it on the ground.

Arturo cursed and immediately ran off to grab the nearest hose. Bucky merely stood there and watched in horror as Summer's garden went up in flames.

* * *

Summer woke up with a sudden jerk, but she didn't know why. She laid there in the dark, all of the night's events rushing back to her, and she glanced at her clock on her nightstand. It wasn't even one in the morning yet.

She sighed and closed her eyes, trying to force herself back to sleep. But then she heard shouting. It was faint, but it made her eyes open and ears perk up. She sat up, squinting, and then she heard what sounded like glass shattering outside.

Scrambling out of bed, she hurried to her window and looked out, but she couldn't see much aside from Marshall's car back in the driveway. That along with the shouting was enough, however, so she quickly threw on a pair of shoes and then ran out of her room and down the stairs, bursting outside in her pajamas and hoping that some horrible fistfight wasn't happening.

As soon as the night air hit her nose, she smelled smoke. She saw it, too, and it was coming from the direction of her garden. That was also where the shouting was coming from.

She ran as fast as her feet could take her, and once her beloved garden came into view, her heart sunk at what she saw. It was on fire, every last bit of it, and two of her workers were taking hoses to the blaze to put it out while Marshall was yelling drunkenly at Bucky.

He had burned her garden. The one part of the farm that was really hers, the place that she had invested so much time and energy and love into... up in flames. Just like everything else of hers that he had ever touched.

He was punishing her.

She turned her head and watched Marshall take out his anger on the man she loved.

"... Her, I understand. Hasn't wanted me in years, but you - _you_. I gave you work, a home, I trusted you and you went behind my back and fu-"

Before he could finish his sentence, she marched right up to him and slapped him hard across the face. He hadn't known that she was even there, so he was doubly shocked and nearly stumbled on the ground as she yelled with all of her anger, "How _could_ you?!"

"How could I?" he slurred, trying to get back on his feet. "How could _you_?"

Bucky grabbed on to her arms to hold her back and also protect her from Marshall as she let her fury take over. "You can't let me have _anything_, can you? Not one thing, even -"

"No, I've given you everything you have," he said, pointing at her. "You had nothing when I found you."

"And I have nothing now!" she retorted. "But I'd rather have nothing than spend one more day married to you. I'm _done_."

He shook his head. "We're not done til I say we're done."

He then went off towards the house, and Bucky was caught between restraining Summer and helping his fellow workers put out the fire. They were yelling for his help, but he didn't want to let Summer go. She broke free anyway.

"Summer, let him go, please," Bucky pleaded, taking her hand when she tried to dash off.

She turned back and looked at him, shaking her head. "I can't."

"He's drunk, he's dangerous."

"He burned my garden," she said, choking on the words a little. It was just so _cruel_. "I'm not taking his crap anymore. He doesn't get to hurt me again. Let me go, Bucky."

She saw in his eyes how much he didn't want to, but in the end, he did let go. She thanked him and then took one more look at her garden, or what had once been it, and her anger provided all the courage she needed to to walk back inside the house and confront Marshall one more time.

She found him in the kitchen, searching their cabinets for more liquor. She kept a safe distance at first, observing, "I think you're drunk enough."

He laughed and found a half-empty bottle of vodka. "I'm not even near drunk enough."

She sighed. "I don't get it. I know that I hid something from you. I get that you're hurt, but look at us. We haven't _actually_ been together in years. We've been on the brink of way divorce longer than we were ever happy - what _is_ this?"

"Because you checked out years ago, I get that," he muttered, leaning against the counter with vodka in hand. "But unlike you, _I_ actually still love you. I was stupid enough to hold out hope and try to get you to love me back and -"

"You've got a weird way of doing that," she said incredulously. "Are you even _aware_ of how you treat me?"

"Is that your excuse?" he asked. "Sometimes I lose my temper, so you decide to go and fuck the help?"

She flinched a little and muttered, "It was _not_ like that."

"So what _was_ it like? I don't even remember what you're like in bed. What's he like? You always asked me to be more, what was it - spontaneous? Adventurous, or something? Is that what he is?"

"I'm not talking to you until you're sober," she frowned, turning around and intending to leave him be until morning. Instead, he followed her and grabbed her arm, turning her back around to face him.

"No, we're talking now. And I asked you a question."

The grip on her arm tight enough to just hurt, she tried to pry his hand off while giving him a look of distaste. "I'm not answering you. Let me go."

He didn't let go. Instead he turned her towards the counter, and he had her pinned against it before she could realize it. "Maybe I could be like him. I know you hate me but maybe if you let me touch you _once_ in your _fucking_ life..."

Alarms started to ring in her head, and she realized that this could go very bad very quickly. He was beyond drunk, beyond reason, and both of his hands now gripped her arms in rather painful holds. But she stood her ground and said through gritted teeth, "Let me _go_."

"I don't want to," he replied. "You'll just run to him. I'm sick of you running from me."

"So what are you gonna do," she asked, "force yourself on me?"

"You're my wife," he muttered. "It's not forcing if it's your job."

One of his hands then left her arm, and while it moved down to presumably start ripping her clothes off, she warned in a slightly shaky voice, "Let me go or I'll -"

"What? What'll you do?" he taunted, laughing, holding her tighter.

She showed rather than told what she'd do. She reached across the counter, grabbed a frying pan sitting on the stove, and whacked him over the head with it. It caught him completely by surprise, and he fell back against the kitchen island with a shocked wail, though she could have hit him much harder.

"What the hell," he cried, stumbling to the floor, holding his head where she had hit it and staring at her with shock and even fear.

A little in shock herself over what she had just done - she had never really hit anyone before, and especially not _with_ something - a sudden surge of courage and purpose flooded her veins. While she had always played it off to Bucky, the truth was that she _did_ fear Marshall and always had. But seeing him like this now and standing over him after having finally, _finally_, defended herself, she could see who and what he was more clearly than she ever had before.

"I _don't_ love you," she told him for the first time. "And you don't love me either, not _really_, because if you did, you wouldn't hurt me like you have since day one." He looked up at her in bewilderment, eyes wide and hands still clutching his head. She dropped the frying pan back on the stove and said, "That's the last time you ever touch me. Or hurt me."

Then she turned and walked away, and where earlier there had been shaking in her legs, now there was steadiness. She had been waiting years to walk away from this man, and the relief and satisfaction of finally doing it calmed her and balanced the riptide of emotions within - to a point.

Whatever happened next, regardless of whether he tried to fight her or if he gladly let her go, she wasn't going back, not for anything. After all, following what had happened in the kitchen those few moments ago, there _could_ be no going back.

When she got outside, Bucky was on his way in, the fire now put out. He caught her halfway to the door and asked, "Are you okay? Did he -"

She shook her head. "I'm fine. I'm okay. But can I stay with you tonight?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course," he said, taking her hand and leading her away from the house. He glanced back at it and asked, "What happened?"

"... He threatened to rape me, basically, so I hit him over the head with a frying pan."

Bucky stopped dead in his tracks, and she stopped too, looking at the sudden murderous gleam in his eye. Her eyes widened, suddenly struck at his expression because she had never seen that kind of look from him before - and he looked like he really was capable of killing.

Wordlessly, he turned to march towards the house, but she stopped him. "Bucky, no - he's not worth it, and I took care of it."

"I'll kill him," Bucky said, trying to gently ease her away from him so he could go on his way.

"I believe you," she said with still-wide eyes, "and that's why you need to _not_ go in there."

"But-"

"I'm fine," she assured him. "But I kinda need you right now and if you kill him you'll go to jail and that would _really_ suck."

Reason slowly returned to his eyes, and he took a steadying breath, eventually nodding, though the darkness didn't leave his eyes. She sighed in relief, and then he took her hand and said, "Let's go before I change my mind."

A short trek across the property later, Summer found herself somewhere she hadn't been before - his rather small room in the building that the other hands lodged in. It was on the ground floor, in the corner of the building. The first thing that struck her about the building was how hot it was - there was no way that the air conditioning was working properly, but not once had Bucky or anyone else mentioned it to her.

She stayed quiet when he brought her inside of his room and shut the door behind him. He had never wanted to bring her here, and she could see why - it was very small, the bed probably barely big enough for just him, and somehow the barn was always cooler than what it felt like in there. He had very few belongings from the looks of it, just a few boxes on the floor and and clothes that sat in a basket for lack of a closet or furniture.

She suddenly felt bad for being unaware of the living conditions of her workers. The size of the room wasn't the problem, but the heat was. She watched him go to the sole window in the room and open it, then turn on a tiny fan in the corner before turning to her and saying, "I know it's not very comfortable in here, but..."

"Yeah, we need to replace the AC, obviously," she said, "but I don't mind. I'd sleep in a cardboard box tonight before I'd sleep anywhere near him."

He nodded, then somewhat unexpectedly pulled her into a hug as they stood there in the middle of his room. His hand was on top of her hair as he asked quietly near her ear, "Are you sure you're okay?"

"... I think so," she said, drawing back a little. His fingers moved her hair behind her ear as she shrugged, "I didn't think he'd do _that_, but... he was drunk and angry, and..."

"Don't make excuses for him," Bucky said quietly but seriously. "There's no excuse for what he did."

"I know. I know, I just... I'm glad that frying pan was nearby." She smiled and tried to make light of it all, but Bucky wasn't smiling back.

His eyes "If he had touched one hair on your head..."

"He didn't," she pointed out.

"But he could have," Bucky said. "If he's still here in the morning, we've got to leave."

Before, she would have argued. Now, she could think of nothing to say to possibly dispute what he was saying, so she nodded. "Okay."

"We'll find somewhere to live. I have a friend we can stay with for awhile if we need to."

"You do?"

"Yes. We'll just... we'll figure it out in the morning. You should sleep."

She wasn't sure that she could sleep at this point, but she nodded anyway and let him lead her to his small bed. She sat down on the side of it, and she was a little surprised when he knelt down in front of her and started taking her shoes off. Once he had them on the floor, he looked up at her, then the bed, and said, "If you want more room I can sleep on the floor, or..."

"No," she shook her head, taking his hand and scooting back on the bed to make room for him. "I don't think I'll be able to fall asleep without you."

He understood, and though fitting them both on the bed meant both of them halfway falling off of the sides, they somehow made it work. None of the difficulties mattered, because after the day and the night that Summer had, being able to end it all in the arms of someone she trusted and felt safe with was far more than she thought she would ever have.

Her garden was burned, her marriage was more over than it had ever been, and she expected to wake up to being kicked off the farm and tossed into the street. She had no idea what the future held or how she would cope with it, but what she _did_ know was that standing up to her fears and to Marshall left her feeling finally good about herself for the first time in a long time.

If she could do that, then surely she could take whatever life threw at her next and make it. She'd survived this long, and maybe now she would finally have a shot at really _living_.

And having a man at her side who loved her and would kill to protect her certainly didn't hurt her chances.

* * *

Summer woke up in the morning to find Marshall's car gone. She tried to avoid looking at the burned remains of her garden as she made her way to the front door of her home, Bucky trailing behind her, both of them sore from uncomfortable sleep but neither caring. The plan was to get in, get what she needed, and then leave.

But, life had a way of turning plans on their heads, and this time was no exception. Summer walked into the kitchen and found a handwritten letter on the table that changed everything.

Stepping to the table, she picked up the piece of paper and expected the worst. Instead, as she read it, she got the opposite.

_Summer, _

_I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't know what to say. Sorry won't ever be good enough. I don't think anything will, and I don't deserve your forgiveness anyway. What I did and said last night was unforgivable and I hate myself. I don't think you could hate me more than I do. _

_I don't know what to do but I obviously need help. There's something wrong with me and I don't think realized it until you hit me with that frying pan. All this time I thought I loved you and was fighting for us but if last night was what came out of all of that then maybe I should have let you go the first time you tried to leave like four years ago. I think you're right. Love doesn't do what I did. Maybe I don't know what love is. Maybe I never have. _

In the past, she had heard things along these lines before from him. Not exactly like this, but they had broken up and come back together so many times that these elaborate apologies and self-flagellation had become part of the routine, to an extent. With a skeptical eye, she read on.

_I don't want to hurt you anymore. You can have the farm. We both know I'm no good with it anyway. I'll move to the city. I'm sorry about the garden. I just wanted to hurt you so bad and I didn't even think about what I was doing. I just wish that you had been honest with me about him. I want to blame you for everything I did, because it wasn't right and it was deceptive and I just didn't see it coming, but that's what else makes me think there's something wrong with me. I sound like one of those lowlifes who blames the victim and that's the last thing I ever wanted to be. _

_... _Was this a trick? Was he sincere or was this another act of manipulation? Did he really feel as bad about himself as his words suggested, or was he only interested in giving her what she wanted in order to keep her silent on last night's events? He prided himself on how everyone at work and in his social circle loved him, and surely he would do anything to keep his reputation intact. The fact was, after all she had seen from him, she simply could know if his sentiments were real or not.

_Not that I'm trying to defend myself at all, but I want you to know that I was telling the truth about cheating on you. I never have, aside from two kisses that I felt horrible about. I guess that's the one thing I didn't do to you. I wish I had instead of the things I did do. _

_I'll call my lawyer and get the papers filed. You can have the farm and whatever else you want. I'll send someone by for my things. It'll probably take a few weeks to draw up stuff to get ownership of the property transferred over to you but I'll get on it. Least I can do after everything you've suffered because of me. _

_I wish everything had been different. I wish I was different. _

_M. _

By the time she finished reading the letter, her hands were shaking again, but not in the way that they had been the day before. Her heart was suddenly pounding and her eyes were filling with tears, and Bucky thought at first that she had read something horrible, but she put the letter down and looked at him with wide, shiny, incredibly shocked eyes.

"Holy crap."

Unable to say anything else, she pushed the letter towards him and then half-collapsed into a chair, all of the emotions she had been dealing with - the good and the bad - bubbling up into a lump in her throat and tears that started falling from her eyes beyond her control.

It was over. It was truly, finally, completely over. And she got to keep her home.

"My God," Bucky said, setting down the letter when he was done.

She looked up at him. "I know. I'm in shock. Am I dreaming?"

He shook his head, then took the seat next to hers. "I sure as hell hope not."

She laughed, wiping away the tears of confusion and happiness mixed. "This is so weird. I never thought he'd do this in a million years."

"You must have literally knocked some sense into him with that frying pan."

She laughed again. "I mean, I still hate him and this doesn't change anything as far as he goes, but my God... what do I even _do_ now?"

Bucky's answer came without hesitation. "You start over."

"How?"

He paused, looking down before taking a breath and looking up at her. She knew that he spoke his next words from experience. "You just... _do_. Take it all a day at a time. Next thing you know you're somewhere you never thought you'd be."

"Is that what you did?" she asked with a small smile.

He nodded, mirroring her smile. "Yeah."

She took a deep breath then, looking around the room and out the window above the sink across the kitchen, where the morning sun was lighting the new day, and the thought of everything around her soon being truly and legally _hers_ made the smile on her face grow even more. What had been dim and damn near hopeless months ago now was bright and promising, even if it took her fair share of fire to get there.

She turned back to Bucky, who was not her savior but rather the catalyst that had set into motion events that had resulted in her saving herself, and she knew then in that moment that she loved him. She adored him, treasured him, and would go to her grave owing more to him than she thought she could ever repay him. But, she said none of those things, because the turn of events had not magically erased her underlying fears or lack of trust in herself to not screw things up.

Some things took a lot more than a letter to fix. But there was time to work on those things now, so she merely smiled at him while inside, her heart swelled with new hope for the future. _Their_ future.

"Guess I gotta start calling you boss now," he said with a certain look in his eye, lips turning up at the corner in half of a grin.

She smiled and giggled, the sound so light that it sounded strange, but a _good_ strange.

Everything was about to change. For the first time in a _very_ long time, however, she wasn't terrified at the prospect of such change. The time for allowing fear to rule was over; now it was time to be brave.

And she couldn't _wait_ to be brave.

* * *

A month passed. In that time, Summer became the official owner of the farm and also became legally separated pending divorce proceedings. If all went well, and if Marshall kept to his word about letting her have what she wanted and not fighting over it, she could be legally free of him in mere months.

Other things changed, as well. Bucky moved into the house upon her insistence. They celebrated this development over nearly every inch of the house in ever-more interesting and creative ways, never getting tired of their new freedom. Something else that she gave high priority to was having the air conditioning fixed in the building that her workers lived in, and she used some extra funds to have the building renovated.

More changes were also in order. The day that her name was officially the only one affixed to the land, she had Bucky gather the workers to the front of the property and stood in front of them with a big smile on her face, ready to go over the new rules with them while Bucky served as translator.

Under the cool autumn morning sky, she began, "So... as you all know, Marshall's gone. I'm officially owner of this farm now, so naturally... I'm gonna change some stuff."

Bucky translating this into smooth-sounding Spanish was a little distracting, but she kept her head about her, even when he turned and flashed her a grin. "First things first - you're all getting raises and more time off."

If the men weren't already incredibly fond of her, they certainly were _then_.

Smiling at the quiet cheers and words of gratitude that they called out to her, she went on, "I'm no slavedriver, and none of you are slaves. You're all good, hard working men, and I'm sorry that you haven't been treated that way, but that changes now. Oh, and play your music as loud as you want whenever you want. You can throw parties too, as long as I'm invited."

They laughed at this, and she smiled back before concluding, "Anything any of you need, let me know and I'll do the best I can. I'm still figuring out how to do this but I'm getting there, and you're all amazing. I mean it. Thank you for all that every one of you has done."

It felt good to see the guys smile and know that a new day really had come. There would be no going back to their old way of life, and as they dispersed, some came up to her and hugged her while others shook her hand and expressed their gratitude in words that Bucky helpfully translated for her. When the last one had gone, she sighed and turned to Bucky, smiling and musing, "Well, that went well."

"You knew it would," he grinned, stepping closer to her and fixing a strap of her dress that was trying to fall down her shoulder. "Hey, do you have a minute?"

"For you, I _probably_ have like five," she teased, and he grinned before placing a quick but sweet kiss to her lips.

"Good. Because I've got something to show you."

"Okay," she replied, letting his hand take hers as he led her away from the house.

She had learned a lot about him in the last month. She learned about the nightmares that plagued his mind at night, which he had kept from her before, and the effects that the war had on him. She had begun to scratch the surface of the darkness within him, but only just. He wasn't quite ready yet to tell her the story of his arm, or what haunted his dreams at night, and she was okay with that. They were growing together at their own paces, and the lack of pressure between them was not only refreshing but necessary. Neither of them were whole or unblemished, and neither of them needed to be.

He took her through some trees and down a short path that took them to a clearing. In that clearing, she saw with suddenly surprised eyes as they came to a stop, was a an impeccably groomed fenced in area. It looked strangely out of place in the clearing, and it reminded her of something that she couldn't put her finger on at first. Then she remembered - it reminded her of her garden.

"What is this?" she asked him with a small, confused smile.

"Something I've been working on," he said quietly, running his hand through his hair like he was nervous. "Hold on, there's something you need to see for it to make sense."

"Okay," she chuckled, watching him briefly disappear behind a tree. He reemerged carrying a white box, and in that white box was dirt and what appeared to be a tiny rose bush, or at least a part of one.

"When your garden... burned," he said softly, knowing the subject was a very sore spot for her, "I managed to find a little bit of one of your rose bushes that looked like it might have been okay. I didn't know for sure so I put it in this and I've been taking care of it, though I barely knew what I was doing, but anyway... look at what just popped up today."

Stunned by what he had just told her, she looked at the plant and then saw a tiny little rose bud, right in the center. She then looked at him, mouth falling open and voice failing her because he had saved this from her torched, beloved garden, and just the thought of him doing that and taking care of it for a month to nurse it back to health was enough to melt her on the spot.

"Oh my _God_," she marveled, looking back at the little bud. "I don't even know what to say. I can't believe you did this. I can't believe it _survived_."

"Yeah... me either," he admitted. "But I thought that with this... you could start a new garden here, in this spot. Sunlight's pretty good and there's shade too. I put some fencing around it to make it look like your old one."

It was too much. She was fresh out of words, simply dumbstruck by this sweet gesture, but the smile on her face was all he needed to see to know that she loved it.

"Come here," he grinned, gesturing for her to follow him as he carried the box inside the empty garden and set it down, right in the middle. It sat at their feet as he turned to her and slid his hands on her waist, smiling as he asked, "Like it?"

"I _love_ it," she breathed, melting into his arms and wrapping hers around his neck. "I really do. It's perfect."

"Good," he grinned before leaning in and kissing her softly.

But the words just weren't enough to convey what she was truly feeling. After years of everything going wrong, suddenly now it was all going right, and this garden symbolized it all in her mind - the fresh start, a new beginning, the proverbial rising from the ashes of an old life that had been burned away to make room for the new, better, stronger, happier one.

She broke the kiss, lightly touching her fingertips to his face as his eyes opened and he looked down at her in slight concern. "You okay?"

She nodded and smiled. "Oh yeah. I just... sometimes I don't know what to say because I'm still not used to this, or you and the way that you do these things for me, and -"

"I know, it's okay."

"But it's not," she insisted. "It's not. There's just something I need to say to you."

His expression grew more serious then, and as he nodded, she saw that hopeful gleam in his eyes once again, just as she had one time before, when she had been on the cusp of saying the same thing.

"This still scares me and... a lot of things scare me, but I'm learning to get over it and just... do things anyway. I never used to be able to do that, but then you came along and now I'm doing all _kinds_ of things I wasn't able to do then, and it's just _wow_, you know, and -"

He smiled affectionately at her rambling. "Summer."

"... So much has changed, and it's so weird but amazing at the same time and I am seriously happy, like happier than I even remember being, and -"

He raised an eyebrow. "_Summer_."

"... And I love you," she blurted out. "I _love_ you, okay, _so_ much, like it hurts how much I love you and I'm sick of not saying it because you deserve to hear it, over and over. _I love you,_ and -"

His mouth on hers swallowed the rest of her words, and she gave in happily, kissing him back as warmth flooded her veins not just from the kiss, but from the relief of having finally said those three words to him. She had felt them for a long time, but saying them had taken courage that she had simply needed time to grow and nurture.

He kissed her deeply, passionately, then broke away and leaned his forehead against hers. "I love you, too."

She smiled, looking up and finding him smiling down at her too, and she felt so incredibly happy in that moment that she thought she might burst.

"I'm sorry it took me awhile to say it," she said quietly, but he just shook his head.

"Don't be. I wouldn't change a thing," he assured her, kissing her again, more softly this time.

She let herself get lost in the touch of his lips on hers before she laughed quietly to herself and said, "Look at me. You used to call me a shot of whiskey. Now I'm all soft and mushy."

"You're still my shot of whiskey," he grinned, though his tone was sincere. "I just don't know what I am."

She knew what he was. He was fire that has swept into her life out of nowhere and burned everything to ground, illuminating how very shaky the ground she had been standing upon truly was. She had been flammable, as dry as the summer heat and desperate as the rain that couldn't quench it, but his fire had brought new life to her veins and new sight to her eyes.

Still, she settled on a simpler way of expressing this. "You're _you_. And I love you."

He smiled, and as they kissed once more, she began to suspect that things might turn out all right after all. They may burn each other at times,and they may even be destructive when placed together and ignited, but she would burn a thousand times more if it meant getting to keep this life and this man. The road that brought her here had not been easy, and nor had it been for him, but it was worth every single day of the journey there.

The best journey, however, was still yet to come. And for first time in her life, Summer finally believed it.


End file.
